Vladimir Putin

Thieves must sit in prison.

The Russian parliament has condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

… This phenomenon has its place in the world, and it’s developing. We need to monitor and analyze what’s going on thoroughly. And at some stage we will need to look at how we can take part in this process, how we can use it to avoid all sorts of restrictions in the sphere of international financial activity, among other things.

The United States and Russian security services regularly exchange information.

Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.

In 1995, Russia virtually gave Chechnya de facto statehood and independence even though, de jure, it didn’t recognize Chechnya as an independent state. And I would like to emphasize strongly that Russia withdrew all of its troops, we moved the prosecutors, we moved all the police, dismantled all the courts, completely, 100 percent.

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.

The “We are America, bitch” posture appeals to chauvinistic instincts and the white supremacy that is a deeply rooted feature of American culture and is now exacerbated by concern that whites might even become a minority.I don’t incidentally suggest that the [media] deceit is conscious. Much more likely, it’s just the enormous power of conformity to convention, to what Gramsci called hegemonic “common sense.” Some ideas are not even rejected; they are unthinkable.

There should be no unemployment. There is large percentage of labor now which cannot make a living because wages are not high enough. That is industry’s 2nd job. 1st job is to make good product. 2nd pay a good wage.

None of us and none of the Arabs trust Israel.

Michelle’s not somebody who wants to be deeply involved in policy development. She’s my closest friend and my most important adviser. But I don’t anticipate her sitting around the table trying to figure out tax policy. She’ll probably choose a project that she cares about. But her number-one priority is going to be these kids, and making sure that their transition is one in which the wonderful normalcy that they have is maintained.

You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.

It’s a very good question, very direct, and I’m not going to answer it.

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.

When you see the other side chopping off heads, waterboarding doesn’t sound very severe.

The nations of Africa, as is true of every continent of the world, from time to time dispute among themselves. These quarrels must be confined to this continent and quarantined from the contamination of non-African interference.

I didn’t come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.

Everything will probably never be OK. But we have to try for it.

China’s refusal to accept opium from Britain’s Indian colony was denounced by John Quincy Adams as a violation of the Christian principle of ‘love thy neighbor’ and ‘an enormous outrage upon the rights of human nature, and upon the first principles of the rights of nations’.

We do not want a single foot of foreign territory; but of our territory we shall not surrender a single inch to anyone.

The depression was just a state of mind. It is over for everyone who has changed his state of mind.