Boris Yeltsin Quotes

#1. We, Russia, are prepared to work with others. I am convinced that stability and security in Europe cannot be considered without taking Russia into account.

Boris Yeltsin

#2. Your commanders have ordered you to storm the White House and to arrest me. But I as the elected President of Russia give you the order to turn your tanks and not to fight against your own people.

Boris Yeltsin

#3. We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. Freedom is like that. It's like air. When you have it, you don't notice it.

Boris Yeltsin

#4. I ask you to forgive me for not fulfilling some hopes of those people who believed that we would be able to jump from the totalitarian past into a bright, rich and civilized future in one go.

Boris Yeltsin

#5. Let's not talk about Communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky.

Boris Yeltsin

#6. Not a single reform effort in Russia has ever been completed.

Boris Yeltsin

#7. Russia also declared its independence. This was approved by the Supreme Soviet, and you know and remember that there was the Declaration on the Independence of Russia.

Boris Yeltsin

#8. A man must live like a great brilliant flame and burn as brightly as he can. In the end he burns out. But this is far better than a mean little flame.

Boris Yeltsin

#9. One could see that what you are writing was that today's meeting with President Bill Clinton was going to be a disaster. Now, for the first time, I can tell you that you are a disaster.

Boris Yeltsin

#10. The most important thing is that Milosevic agreed to sit at the negotiating table with the Kosovo Albanians.

Boris Yeltsin

#11. There are numerous bugbears in the profession of a politician. First, ordinary life suffers. Second, there are many temptations to ruin you and those around you. And I suppose third, and this is rarely discussed, people at the top generally have no friends.

Boris Yeltsin

#12. While maintaining our nuclear potential at the proper level, we need to devote more attention to developing the entire range of means of information warfare.

Boris Yeltsin

#13. A politician must have some scruples, a certain decency; he cannot smear himself in the mud for the sake of a high ideal.

Boris Yeltsin

#14. There were no strategic mistakes that could affect Russia's history and it further development. No, there were no such mistakes. Tactical errors were made in some less significant options, problems and so on. But, on the whole, Russia embarked on a correct path and it changed.

Boris Yeltsin

#15. You have no right to criticise Russia over Chechnya.

Boris Yeltsin

#16. The Soviet Union could not exist without the image of the empire. The image of the empire could not exist without the image of force. The USSR ended the moment the first hammer pounded the Berlin Wall.

Boris Yeltsin

#17. Europe has found itself confronted with fresh challenges - challenges of a global character, the nature of which is directly connected with changes in the international climate and the difficulties of seeking new models for co-operation.

Boris Yeltsin

#18. Liberty sets the mind free, fosters independence and unorthodox thinking and ideas. But it does not offer instant prosperity or happiness and wealth to everyone.

Boris Yeltsin

#19. The main problem with being president is the constant sense that you are inside a glass bowl for everyone to see, or in a kind of barometric chamber with an artificial atmosphere where you must stay all the time.

Boris Yeltsin

#20. It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts.

Boris Yeltsin

#21. The clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country. They must not be allowed to bring eternal night.

Boris Yeltsin

#22. A sense of proportion and humanitarian action are not issues for terrorists. Their aim is that of killing and destroying.

Boris Yeltsin

#23. We all have an equal interest in stability and security throughout Europe. The years the OSCE has existed, and particularly this year, have given rise to great expectations and at the same time to powerful disappointments.

Boris Yeltsin

#24. I would like to stress here that a lasting peace in the Chechen republic and so-called peace talks with the bandits are not the same thing, and I would ask everyone to make no mistake about that.

Boris Yeltsin

#25. Money, big money (which is actually a relative concept) is always, under any circumstances, a seduction, a test of morals, a temptation to sin.

Boris Yeltsin

#26. The West has not lived through totalitarianism, with a single ideology for 70 years.We are escaping from the burden of the past, and onlyafter we have done that will we be ready to integrate with Europeand Europe needs Russia.

Boris Yeltsin

#27. I understand that it's hard for everyone, but one cannot give in to emotions ... we'll have to draw lessons from the current crisis and now we'll have to work on overcoming it.

Boris Yeltsin

#28. Thousands of mercenaries, who have trained in camps on the territory of Chechnya as well as come in from abroad, are actually preparing to impose extremist ideas on the whole world.

Boris Yeltsin

#29. I refer to calls for humanitarian intervention in the affairs of another state - a new idea, this - even when they are made under the pretext of defending human rights and freedoms.

Boris Yeltsin

#30. You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long.

Boris Yeltsin

#31. I will not step down, I will not resign, ... I will work to the end of my term in office under the constitution. In the year 2000, there will be presidential elections under the constitution and I will not run in those elections.

Boris Yeltsin

#32. A total of 1,580 people, the civilian population, suffered as a result of the bloody wave of terrorist acts that swept over Moscow and other towns and villages of our country.

Boris Yeltsin

#33. I cannot shift the blame for Chechnya, for the sorrow of numerous mothers and fathers. I made the decision, therefore I am responsible.

Boris Yeltsin

#34. A government is not an old pair of socks that you throw away.

Boris Yeltsin

#35. We Russians are already living, not getting ready to live.

Boris Yeltsin

#36. We are well aware from which countries and through which countries the terrorists are receiving support. In the immediate future I shall be calling upon the leaders of these states to put a stop to this kind of activity.

Boris Yeltsin

#37. International terrorism is throwing down a challenge, and not just to Russia.

Boris Yeltsin

#38. We want peace and a political solution to the situation in Chechnya.

Boris Yeltsin

#39. Gorbachev gave us freedom of worship and freedom of speech and freedom to see what was going on and freedom to vote, but that freedom won't last unless it is underpinned by economic freedom.

Boris Yeltsin

#40. I believe in this tragic hour you can make the right choice. The honor and glory of Russian men of arms shall not be stained with the blood of the people.

Boris Yeltsin

#41. I especially love driving down a hill directly at a tree and swerving to one side at the last moment. That's my way to relax.

Boris Yeltsin