Top 100 Mikhail Gorbachev Quotes
#1. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#2. To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#4. The phenomenon of UFOs does exist, and it must be treated seriously.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#5. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#6. The Union was destroyed against the will of the people, and it was done deliberately - with the participation of the Russian leadership, on the one hand, and that of the putschists, on the other.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#7. I envisage the prinicles of the Earth Charter to be a new form of the ten commandments. They lay the foundation for a sustainable global earth community.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#8. We are not abandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone to abandon theirs.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#9. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#10. One day we took each other by the hand and went for a walk in the evening. And we walked like that for our whole life.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#12. For the first time ever, we have confronted in reality the sinister power of uncontrolled nuclear energy.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#13. If people don't like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#14. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#15. I think God has some mechanism that he uses to punish those that make mistakes.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#16. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#18. We used to have just one criterion and that was profit, and then another criterion was added - social welfare. Now we have to add the third important criterion, and that is nature and the environment.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#20. What about Jesus Christ? I say that he was a precursor of idealists; a precursor of socialists.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#22. A New World Order is required to deal with the Climate Change crisis.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#24. Montreal, this wonderful town ... Pearl of Canada, Pearl of the world.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#25. We were nearly one of the last to realize that in the age of
information science the most expensive asset is knowledge.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#26. Humankind has no option but to protect and live in harmony with its natural environment. However, it would be regrettable if in putting an end to revolutionary extremism, we should then come to environmental extremism. We should not forget that all extremes are the same.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#27. I support freedom and I support a free market economy, but it should be a socially oriented market economy. I support globalization, but it should be globalization with a human face.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#28. There should be competition and exchanges between different countries, but there are certainly certain universal values, and that is freedom and democracy.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#29. More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#30. Communist ideology in its pure form is akin to
Christianity. Its main ideas are the brotherhood of all
peoples irrespective of their nationality, justice and
equality, peace, and an end to all hostility between
peoples.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#31. It is really important to solve the problem of rational utilization and distribution of wate supplies. I dare say, the shortage of fresh water is the major ecological problem of this moment.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#32. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#33. Lake Baikal in Russia has 25 percent of the freshwater resources of the world. Sixty-five percent of the Russian ecosystems are in danger. So let's preserve what we have, and let's take good care of nature.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#34. Americans have a severe disease - worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#35. It sometimes seems to me that some of our Western partners do not want Russia to fully recover. They would like Russia to be in a subdued state, and they want Russian resources to be used for the benefit of the U.S. economy.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#36. A new generation of more educated people started to be active. Then society required freedom, society demanded freedom.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#38. If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#39. I have long ago made a final and irrevocable decision. Nothing and no one, no pressure, cither from the right or from the left, will make me abandon the positions of perestroika and new thinking. I do not intend to change my views or convictions. My choice is a final one.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#41. Ideological and political intolerance, even with the best and most sincere intentions, produces results that are the direct opposite of those intended.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#42. It is better to discuss things, to argue and engage in polemics than make perfidious plans of mutual destruction.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#44. We must treat water as if it were the most precious thing in the world, the most valuable natural resource. Be economical with water! Don't waste it! We still have time to do something about this problem before it is too late.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#45. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#46. I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#47. The human race has entered a stage where we are all dependent on each other. No other country or nation should be regarded in total separation from another, let alone pitted against another.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#48. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#49. In our discussions here at the forum there was no trace of the futile debate about what is better, capitalism or socialism ... We should seek a synthesis of ideas and values that have proven their viability ...
Mikhail Gorbachev
#50. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#51. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#52. In Russia, there are those who make their money in criminal ways, but I earn everything myself.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#53. The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#54. 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
Mikhail Gorbachev
#55. Globalization was supposed to break down barriers between continents and bring all peoples together. But what kind of globalization do we have with over one billion people on the planet not having safe water to drink?
Mikhail Gorbachev
#58. It will be difficult, even painful, but democracy will prevail in Russia. There will be no dictatorship, although relapses into authoritarianism are possible.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#59. The threat of environmental crisis is the 'international disaster key' to unlock the New World Order.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#60. You are fortunate to live here. If I were your President, I would levy a tax on you for living in San Francisco!
Mikhail Gorbachev
#61. For a new type of progress throughout the world to become a reality, everyone must change. Tolerance is the alpha and omega of a new world order.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#62. Even today, a majority of people surveyed say that they regret the fact that the USSR collapsed. But only 9 percent say that they would want it back.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#63. Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#64. You cannot go to sleep with one form of economic system and wake up the next morning with another.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#65. We need a new environmental consciousness on a global basis. To do this, we need to educate people.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#68. Our rockets can find Halley's comet, and fly to Venus with amazing accuracy, but side by side with these scientific and technical triumphs is an obvious lack of efficiency in using scientific achievements for economic needs ... many Soviet household appliances are of poor quality.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#69. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#70. I began to feel the desire for something more; I wanted to do something to make things better.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#72. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#73. The model of the consumer society is something that will one day end. My personal view is that too much consumption is wrong.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#74. I am an optimist and I believe that together we shall be able now to make the right historical choice so as not to miss the great chance at the turn of centuries and millenia and make the current extremely difficult transition to a peaceful world order.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#75. The socialist tradition ... goes back to Jesus Christ,
not (Karl) Marx.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#76. Politics is my second love, next to my love for Raisa [Gorbacheva].
Mikhail Gorbachev
#77. Man is beginning to explore the galaxy. But how much remains undone on earth?
Mikhail Gorbachev
#78. In effect, according to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible. By gaining democratic freedoms the working masses come to power.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#79. History teaches us, however, that when the times are ripe for change and the government refuses or is unable to change, either society starts to decay or a revolution begins.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#80. Ideally, peace means the absence of violence. It is an ethical value.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#82. We desperately need to recognize that we are the guests not the masters of nature and adopt a new paradigm for development, based on the costs and benefits to all people, and bound by the limits of nature herself rather than the limits of technology and consumerism.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#83. The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant ... has painfully affected the Soviet people, and shocked the international community. For the first time, we confront the real force of nuclear energy, out of control.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#84. If you want Russia to be a real fully developed partner, then America should invest in Russia and activate Russia as a strong nation.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#86. If the Russian word " perestroika " has easily entered the international lexicon, this is due to more than just interest in what is going on in the Soviet Union. Now the whole world needs restructuring, i.e. progressive development, a fundamental change.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#87. A society should never become like a pond with stagnant water, without movement. That's the most important thing.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#88. Women prevent the threads of life from being broken. The finest minds have always understood the peacemaking role of women.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#89. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#90. The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#91. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#93. Nature is reminding us that it used to exist without human beings.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#94. You cannot put Russia down on its knees and hold it there because Russia will ultimately pull out.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#95. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#96. A new world order is taking shape so fast that governments as well as private citizens find it difficult just to absorb the gallop of events.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#97. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#98. History is a capricious creature. It depends on who writes it.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#99. No one, no single center, can today command the world. No single group of countries can do it. Under the current U.S. president, I don't think we can fundamentally change the situation as it is developing now. It is dangerous. The world is experiencing a period of growing global disarray.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#100. Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.
Mikhail Gorbachev
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