Top 100 Quotes About Gorbachev
#1. But how reassuring it was for us, you remember, every now and then ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall"), to vibrate to the music of the very heartstrings of the Leader of the Free World who, to qualify convincingly as such, had after all to feel a total commitment to the Free World.
William F. Buckley Jr.
#2. I couldn t help but say to Mr. Gorbachev just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet. We d find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together
Ronald Reagan
#3. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. And get a massage - you look really stressed
Ronald Reagan
#4. Us reaching the moon convinced Gorbachev and other leaders that the Soviet Union couldn't compete with the U.S., so they revised their agenda. But people have short memories.
Buzz Aldrin
#5. I disapproved of the fact that the government here refused to adopt the few reforms that Gorbachev put over in the field of media and the field of culture.
Stefan Heym
#6. The essential meaning of perestroika for Gorbachev and his supporters was creating and acting on alternatives to failed and dangerous policies at home and abroad.
Stephen Cohen
#7. It's Bush's baby, even if he shares its popularization with Gorbachev. Forget the Hitler 'new order' root; F.D.R. used the phrase earlier.
William Safire
#8. Despite his deeply-held ideology, Reagan was willing to talk to Gorbachev. He willing to do business with him. We should realize that engaging with adversaries is often one of our great strengths. As long as we use the engagement to stand up for the things we care about, there is no harm in talking.
David Hoffman
#9. Gorbachev was acutely aware of the [USSR] economic problems, and it was central to all he did. He wanted to change the system in hopes of saving it. In the end he could not.
David Hoffman
#10. Mr. Gorbachev has apparently stumbled onto one of the best-kept secrets in recent Soviet history: Communism doesn't work.
Frank Zappa
#11. Gorbachev warns of major war in Europe over Ukraine.
Reuters
#12. Pavel Palazchenko has given us a well-written, inside account of Gorbachev's and Shevardnadze's diplomacy. Remarkably objective, it is full of insights, makes fascinating reading, and will also be a prime source for scholars long into the future.
Jack F. Matlock Jr.
#13. The words spoken by the leader of the free world can expand the frontiers of freedom or shrink them. When Ronald Reagan called on Gorbachev to 'tear down this wall', a surge of confidence rose that would ultimately breach the bounds of the evil empire.
Mitt Romney
#14. Those who warned that Gorbachev was being put under too much pressure were wrong.
Natan Sharansky
#15. In that case, do not expect to be rescued by the Red Army, Gorbachev said.
Ken Follett
#16. I was named after the great emperor Cyrus as my father, Farokh Broacha, was a great admirer of the Persian emperor. Continuing the tradition, I have named my son after Mikhail Gorbachev, someone whom I admire. He gave his people freedom.
Cyrus Broacha
#18. The citizen lives in each of us. In the days of Brezhnev, Andropov, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, I was constantly trying to suppress the responsible citizen in me. I told myself that I was, after all, an artist.
Vladimir Sorokin
#19. Mikhail Gorbachev was the Jimmy Carter of the Communist bloc. The Russians hate him.
P. J. O'Rourke
#20. I have Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to thank that a Russian writer can not only write anything he wants, but also publish it.
Vladimir Sorokin
#21. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
Ronald Reagan
#22. Gorbachev's stance contrasts admirably with the policy of the sainted Abraham Lincoln, who used massive force and mass murder to force the seceding Southern states to remain in the Union.
Murray Rothbard
#23. I love art. I used to have a painting of Gorbachev that was given to my family by Gorbachev.
Armie Hammer
#24. The opportunities that Gorbachev created for international relations have also been missed, perhaps even lost - here, however, primarily because of the United States.
Stephen Cohen
#25. I know Mischa, but you know how the politburo runs. If I say one word of this in there, I'll be out of my job the next day.' Remember, Gorbachev only became general secretary after he had kept his mouth shut under three predecessors.
Markus Wolf
#26. On March 11, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union, and within a few weeks the full-scale reformation he attempted to carry out both inside his country and in its cold war relations with the West, particularly the United States, began to unfold.
Stephen Cohen
#27. Kami, do you have a weapon?"
"No, I do not have a fucking weapon!" Kami screamed over her shoulder. "Do you really think I'd risk going to jail for that Mexican whore?"
"Puerto Rican," Hawk muttered,rolling his eyes.
"Shut up, Gorbachev!
Madeline Sheehan
#28. Whatever efforts for peace President Gorbachev had in mind, they were pretty substantially undercut very swiftly by Saddam Hussein.
John Major
#29. I would like to meet Mikhail Gorbachev. I think it would be great to sit in a room with him ... and try to make peace.
Donnie Wahlberg
#30. Mr. Gorbachev initiated Glasnost, Perestroika, so he was already, you know, way disenchanted with the rigid Communist ideology, and he was looking to become an international leader. He was more accepted actually outside of the Communist Soviet Union than inside.
Deepak Chopra
#31. 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
#33. I left Gorbachev's office thinking that everything about him was outsized: his achievements, his mistakes, and, now, his vanity and bitterness.
David Remnick
#34. It is a great honor for me to be presented the award by Mikhail Gorbachev and also to be acknowledged with the World Actress Award at the Women World Awards Gala 2005.
Teri Hatcher
#35. 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
#36. To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#38. The phenomenon of UFOs does exist, and it must be treated seriously.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#39. 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
#40. 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
#41. 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
#42. I believe, as Lenin said, that this revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new forms of life.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#43. We are not abandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone to abandon theirs.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#44. Putin wants to stay in power, but not so that he can finally solve our most pressing problems: education, health care, poverty.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#45. 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.'
Mikhail Gorbachev
#46. 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
#47. 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
#49. When I cleared out Moscow apartment after stepping down as president, they found all kinds of wiring in the walls. It turned out that they had been spying on me all along.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#50. Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his speech accepting the Nobel Prize: Violence has no way to conceal itself except by lies, and lies have no way to maintain themselves except through violence. Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#51. For the first time ever, we have confronted in reality the sinister power of uncontrolled nuclear energy.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#53. If people don't like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#54. 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
#55. I think God has some mechanism that he uses to punish those that make mistakes.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#56. America has a right to be a leader. This leadership should be realized through partnership, not domination.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#57. I will never give up politics. I've tried to give it up three times, but I never made it. Politics mobilizes me. I won't last long if I give it up.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#58. 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
#59. Contemporary social democracy is what I believe is the right concept.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#61. God has given us enough wisdom to make improvements in our relations.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#62. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#63. 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
#65. What about Jesus Christ? I say that he was a precursor of idealists; a precursor of socialists.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#66. Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#67. The time has come to choose a new direction of global development, to opt for a new civilization.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#69. It will not be enough to rely on experts. Ordinary citizens must become experts too. It will take public opinion on a wide scale to ensure that world leaders act.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#70. A New World Order is required to deal with the Climate Change crisis.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#72. Montreal, this wonderful town ... Pearl of Canada, Pearl of the world.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#73. We were nearly one of the last to realize that in the age of
information science the most expensive asset is knowledge.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#74. 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
#75. According to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible ... The essence of perestroika lies in the fact that it unites socialism with democracy and revives the Leninist concept of socialist construction both in theory and in practice. We want more socialism and, therefore, more democracy.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#76. 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
#77. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#78. There should be competition and exchanges between different countries, but there are certainly certain universal values, and that is freedom and democracy.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#79. More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#80. 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
#81. Ex-Presidents of the United States get state subsidies. Not so in Russia. You get no government support.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#82. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#83. 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
#84. 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
#85. What we're talking about is creating new forms of life on the basis of new values.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#86. 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
#87. The most puzzling development in politics during the last decade is the apparent determination of Western European leaders to re-create the Soviet Union in Western Europe.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#89. Americans have a severe disease - worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#90. My goal was to avoid bloodshed. But unfortunately there was some bloodshed, after all.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#91. 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
#92. A new generation of more educated people started to be active. Then society required freedom, society demanded freedom.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#94. If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#95. 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
#96. Every part of our program of perestroika - and the program as a whole, for that matter - is fully based on the principle of more socialism and more democracy.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#98. Ideological and political intolerance, even with the best and most sincere intentions, produces results that are the direct opposite of those intended.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#99. It is better to discuss things, to argue and engage in polemics than make perfidious plans of mutual destruction.
Mikhail Gorbachev
#100. 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.
Mikhail Gorbachev
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