Boris Yeltsin

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

You have no right to criticise Russia over Chechnya.

We need not stride resolutely towards catastrophe, merely because those are the marching orders.

If I were in a swing state, a state that matters, and the choice were Clinton or Trump, I would vote against Trump. And by arithmetic that means hold your nose and vote for Clinton.

…most of the world’s fossil-fuel reserves must remain in the ground if an environmental disaster for humankind is to be averted, but under the logic of state-supported capitalist institutions, the private owners of those reserves are racing to exploit them to the fullest.

Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.

Nuclear weapons are not a defence.

It’s been fascinating – and exhilarating – watching this movement mushroom over the last few weeks, this campaign is about spreading a message of hope and change based on the central choice – five years or more of continued austerity, or a plan for investment and growth that stands up for the majority.

We can win an awful lot of people into the political spectrum, by offering something that is … radical.

Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.

When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use.

In a three-minute stretch between commercials, or in seven hundred words, it is impossible to present unfamiliar thoughts or surprising conclusions with the argument and evidence required to afford them some credibility. Regurgitation of welcome pieties faces no such problem.

No one should be allowed to violently trample on the law.

We are of course a nation of differences. Those differences don’t make us weak. They’re the source of our strength.

The democratic tendency… leads men unceasingly to multiply the privileges of the state and to circumscribe the rights of private persons… often sacrificed without regret and almost always violated without remorse… men become less and less attached to private rights just when it is most necessary to retain and defend what little remains of them.

Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.

Public servants are paid to serve the American people. Do it well.