Vladimir Putin

He who does not regret the break-up of the Soviet Union has no heart; he who wants to revive it in its previous form has no head.

It is wrong to make anyone into an enemy; it is wrong to scare the people of one’s own country with that enemy and try to rally some allies on that basis.

The state security bodies should not be seen as an institution that works against society and the state; one needs to understand what makes them work against their own people.

For Russia, there is not and there may not be another political option but democracy. However, Russian democracy is… not at all the realization of standards imposed on us from outside.

Or stay in Chechnya and wait to be attacked? What should we do? I have said what we must do. We must go through the mountain caves and scatter and destroy all those who are armed. Perhaps after the presidential elections, we should introduce direct presidential rule there for a couple of years. We must rebuild the economy and the social services, show the people that normal life is possible. We must pull the young generation out of the environment of violence in which it is living. We must put a program of education in place . . . We must work. We must not abandon Chechnya as we did before. In fact, we did a criminal thing back then, when we abandoned the Chechen people and undermined Russia. Now we must work hard, and then transfer to full fledged political procedures, allowing them and us to decide how we can coexist. It is unavoidable fact: We must live together. We have no plans to deport Chechens, as Stalin once solved the problem. And Russia has no other choice. Nobody can impose a solution on us by force but we are prepared to take maximum consideration of Chechen

Political activities in Russia should be as transparent as possible. Financing political activities from abroad is something the state should keep an eye on.

We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.

I believe health care is a basic right. If education – you’re entitled to an education, why wouldn’t you be entitled to adequate health care? Period.

We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.

Of course we as Labour Party members must all be free to criticise and oppose injustice and abuse wherever we find it. But as today’s Report recommends, can we please leave Hitler and Nazi metaphors alone (especially in the context of Israel). Why? Because the Shoah is still in people’s family experience.

Hamas is regularly described as ‘Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.’ One will be hard put to find something like ‘democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus’-blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable.

The beauty of our system is that it isolates everybody. Each person is sitting alone in front of the tube, you know. It’s very hard to have ideas or thoughts under those circumstances. You can’t fight the world alone.

While mild social reforms have been introduced in the United States, others now conventional in Western Europe (e.g., national health insurance, minimal ‘worker participation’ in industry, etc.) have been effectively resisted here…

A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.

Read, say, George Washington, a leading figure in the settler-colonial society we live in. His view was – his words – was that we have to ‘extirpate’ the Iroquois; they’re in our way. They were an advanced civilization.

If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today.

Half of Republicans deny that global warming is taking place, while 70% say that whether it is or not, humans are not responsible. Such figures would be shocking anywhere, but are remarkably so in a developed country with unparalleled resources and easy access to information.

In accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the issues of foreign policy and defense are fully in the hands of the president.

I mean, any issue of any complexity is going to have some diversity of opinion. But when you get a unanimous vote to kill the Iranian deal or the Affordable Care Act or whatever the next thing may be, you know you’re not dealing with a political party.

U.S. society doesn’t want to play the role of international policeman.

If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?