Vladimir Putin

I think the international community should unite to fight such inhuman phenomena as terror attacks and the murder of totally innocent people.

The path towards a free society has not been simple. There are tragic and glorious pages in our history.

I love the Russian classics very much, the Russian classical literature. But I also read modern literature. As far as Russian literature is concerned, I am very fond of Tolstoy and Chekhov, and I also enjoy reading Gogol very much.

The strengthening of our statehood is, at times, deliberately interpreted as authoritarianism.

I would prefer to abandon the terminology of the past. ‘Superpower’ is something which we used during the cold war time. Why use it now?

I would like right now to address my colleagues in the regions, to ask them to not allow, under any circumstances, for flea markets and the like to appear at these stadiums, as appeared in other sport-related buildings in Moscow during the middle of the 1990s.

The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.

I have a great relationship with Kim Jong Un. He gave us back our hostages. I didn’t pay $1.8 billion. I paid nothing. But it was very smart that he did it.

I think the international community should unite to fight such inhuman phenomena as terror attacks and the murder of totally innocent people.

Our only real hope for democracy is that we get the money out of politics entirely and establish a system of publicly funded elections.

You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.

America didn’t invent human rights. Those rights are common to all people: nations, cultures, and religions cannot choose to simply opt out of them.

The probability of apocalypse soon cannot be realistically estimated, but it is surely too high for any sane person to contemplate with equanimity.

Since the white working class cannot be mobilized to support the class enemy on the basis of their actual programs, the ‘radical insurgency’ called ‘the Republican Party’ appeals to its constituency on what are called ‘social-cultural issues’: religion, fear, racism, nationalism.

To forgive the terrorists is up to God, but to send them to him is up to me.

Big institutions, like Goldman Sachs really don’t have to worry much about systemic risk because we don’t have a market system. So therefore they can run cap in hand to the nanny state and say ‘bail me out’ and that’s what happens.

Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

Stop talking about how you care about people. Show me something. Show me a policy. Show me a policy where you take responsibility.

America will start winning again, winning like never before.