Mikhail Gorbachev

My life’s work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.

If people don’t like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.

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.

Sometimes when you stand face to face with someone, you cannot see his face.

Ex-Presidents of the United States get state subsidies. Not so in Russia. You get no government support.

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.’

I’ve made it clear my views on austerity and I’ve made it very clear my views on the Iraq War. And I promised that I would, and I did, give the apology on the anniversary of Iraq, and I stand by that, because I think it was a catastrophic mistake.

If you look at Saddam Hussein, he killed terrorists. I’m not saying he was an angel, but this guy killed terrorists.

You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.

Nobody respects a country with a poor army, but everybody respects a country with a good army. I raise my toast to the Finnish army

[on Trump] This guy’s shame has no limits.

Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?

I always touch people, because I know that there’s a level of anxiety, people are teary or they’re nervous, and I just try to physically hold them and bring them down and say: ‘We’re here. I’m just Michelle.’

Once wide coercive powers are given to government agencies…such powers cannot be effectively controlled.

However much I dislike the idea of abortion, you should not criminalize a woman who, in very difficult circumstances, makes that choice.

How could this Y2K be a problem in a country where we have Intel and Microsoft?

[on Donald Trump] seems determined to add to the dangers [in the global situation] by recklessly escalating the confrontation with North Korea, unilaterally launching missile strikes on Syria, opposing President Obama’s nuclear arms deal with Iran and backing a new nuclear arms race.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

We still name our military helicopter gunships after victims of genocide. Nobody bats an eyelash about that: Blackhawk. Apache. And Comanche. If the Luftwaffe named its military helicopters Jew and Gypsy, I suppose people would notice.

Thieves must sit in prison.

If governments would only understand that if people are left alone they’ll work out their own salvation.