Top 165 Quotes & Sayings by Mikhail Gorbachev
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Russian statesman Mikhail Gorbachev.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.
It seems that the most important thing about Reagan was his anti-Communism and his reputation as a hawk who saw the Soviet Union as an 'evil empire.'
Sometimes people ask me why I began perestroika. Were the causes basically domestic or foreign? The domestic reasons were undoubtedly the main ones, but the danger of nuclear war was so serious that it was a no less significant factor.
If current technological processes continue without change, the environment will change, and we, the human species, will either have to mutate or even die, to disappear, as many species have disappeared.
Ex-Presidents of the United States get state subsidies. Not so in Russia. You get no government support.
What about Jesus Christ? I say that he was a precursor of idealists; a precursor of socialists.
Sometimes when you stand face to face with someone, you cannot see his face.
I couldn't wait to get to the most powerful position, because I thought then I would be able to fix problems that only the leader can fix. But when I got there, I realized we needed revolutionary change.
It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past.
A society should never become like a pond with stagnant water, without movement. That's the most important thing.
Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended. But the world could not continue developing as it had, with the stark menace of nuclear war ever present.
On the day I became Soviet leader, in March 1985, I had a special meeting with the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries and told them: 'You are independent, and we are independent. You are responsible for your policies, we are responsible for ours. We will not intervene in your affairs, I promise you.'
Starting reforms in the Soviet Union was only possible from above, only from above. Any attempt to go from below was suppressed, suppressed in a most resolute way.
I grew up in a family of peasants, and it was there that I saw the way that, for example, our wheat fields suffered as a result of dust storms, water erosion and wind erosion; I saw the effect of that on life - on human life.
What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars.
America must be the teacher of democracy, not the advertiser of the consumer society. It is unrealistic for the rest of the world to reach the American living standard.
The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.
Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.
I say again that I am an atheist. I do not believe in God.
I think we need more young people; we need to elect young people to government. We need to give them a chance, in the media, in politics, in democracy.
I believe, as Lenin said, that this revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new forms of life.
If people don't like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.
More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life.
I don't think Russia is setting this as a goal; I don't think this should be Russia's goal. I think even the United States doesn't need to be a superpower. China doesn't need to be a superpower. It's a different world.
Political leaders still think things can be done through force, but that cannot solve terrorism. Backwardness is the breeding ground of terror, and that is what we have to fight.
I think the environmental problem will be the number one item on the agenda of the 21st century... This is a problem that cannot be postponed.
You cannot put Russia down on its knees and hold it there because Russia will ultimately pull out.
Sometimes it's difficult to accept, to recognise one's own mistakes, but one must do it. I was guilty of overconfidence and arrogance, and I was punished for that.
Every country should conduct its own reforms, should develop its own model, taking into account the experience of other countries, whether close neighbours or far away countries.
Surely, God on high has not refused to give us enough wisdom to find ways to bring us an improvement in relations between the two great nations on earth.
My life's work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.
Imagine a country that flies into space, launches Sputniks, creates such a defense system, and it can't resolve the problem of women's pantyhose. There's no toothpaste, no soap powder, not the basic necessities of life. It was incredible and humiliating to work in such a government.
I think God has some mechanism that he uses to punish those that make mistakes.
There should be competition and exchanges between different countries, but there are certainly certain universal values, and that is freedom and democracy.
It is better to discuss things, to argue and engage in polemics than make perfidious plans of mutual destruction.
We are not abandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone to abandon theirs.
We could only solve our problems by cooperating with other countries. It would have been paradoxical not to cooperate. And therefore we needed to put an end to the Iron Curtain, to change the nature of international relations, to rid them of ideological confrontation, and particularly to end the arms race.
Democracy must learn to defend itself.
If not me, who? And if not now, when?
The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.
The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.
Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.
The market came with the dawn of civilization and it is not an invention of capitalism. If it leads to improving the well-being of the people there is no contradiction with socialism.
I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal.
I paid too heavy a price for perestroika.
Certain people in the United States are driving nails into this structure of our relationship, then cutting off the heads. So the Soviets must use their teeth to pull them out.
It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times.
The threat of environmental crisis is the 'international disaster key' to unlock the New World Order.
We had 10 years after the Cold War to build a new world order and yet we squandered them. The United States cannot tolerate anyone acting independently. Every US president has to have a war.
The social model of the Bolsheviks failed, as will any model that denies individual rights, intellectual freedom, and freedom of competing political parties. Without these freedoms and rights, there is no motivation for people to work. Such a system cannot be sustained, especially in light of the technological revolution of the information era.
In October 1917, we parted with the old world, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a new world, a world of Communism. We shall never turn off that road.
I certainly wouldn't say that we loved the arms race. Trillions of dollars were used to stoke it. For our economy, which was smaller in size than the American economy, it was a burden. But one cannot agree with the statement that the arms race played the key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
We are all passengers aboard one ship, the Earth, and we must not allow it to be wrecked. There will be no second Noah's Ark.
We must speak more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage.
Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about Glasnost and Perestroika and democracy in the coming years. They are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal changes in the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep.
If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you. You haven't done much today.
I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature.
When future generations judge those who came before them on environmental issues, they may conclude "they didn't know": let us not go down in history as the generations who knew, but didn't care
Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.
The problem the world faces today is that only one-third of the world's population lives in decent circumstances, while half the population of the world lives on one or two dollars a day. And even as we have this poverty and backwardness, we are facing a global environmental crisis. We need developmental models that will take into account the specific and unique position of each country and at the same time will address the environmental crisis.
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