Vladimir Putin

You can do a lot more with weapons and politeness than just politeness.

I have always loved and avidly read the novels of Jack London, Jules Verne and Ernest Hemingway. The characters depicted in their books, who are brave and resourceful people embarking on exciting adventures, definitely shaped my inner self and nourished my love for the outdoors.

The centuries-old history and culture of India, majestic architectural monuments and museums of Delhi, Agra and Mumbai have a unique attractive force.

Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received any such information from our partners as yet.

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.

In accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the issues of foreign policy and defense are fully in the hands of the president.

That just fires up his worshipful base, providing more evidence that the hated liberal elites are trying to destroy the one guy in the political arena who is dedicated to defending the common folk – who he is shafting, with delight, at every opportunity.

Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.

The press must grow day in and day out – it is our Party’s sharpest and most powerful weapon.

A country in which the people are not healthy physically and psychologically, are poorly educated and illiterate, will never rise to the peaks of world civilization.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

America didn’t invent human rights. Those rights are common to all people: nations, cultures, and religions cannot choose to simply opt out of them.

Just take a look at the Nazi conquest of nice, civilized Western Europe….Who was rounding up the Jews? Local people, often. In France they were rounding them up faster than the Nazis could handle them. The Nazis also used Jews to control Jews.

So there was basically the same kind of conflict in Peter as Yeltsin had with the Supreme Soviet [parliament]? Yes. But it is important to note that there wasn’t the same division between the law-enforcement agencies that there had been in 1991. The FSB11 leadership-Viktor Cherkesov was the head-announced their support for the mayor from the start. The FSB introduced a number of measures advocating the arrest of extremists who were plotting provocations, planning to blow things up, or trying to destabilize the situation. And that was the end of it.

State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect. It was a lesson learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day.

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

So it seems like if they want to reduce abortion, the best thing to do would be to support contraception – but they’re against contraception, too, because contraception and abortion decouple sexuality from procreation. That’s why I think religious preoccupation with abortion is largely about controlling the sexuality of women.

Worry does not mean fear, but readiness for the confrontation.

It’s very important for institutions of concentrated power to keep people alone and isolated: that way they’re ineffective, they can’t defend themselves against indoctrination, they can’t even figure out what they think.

A truly independent press rejects the role of subordination to power and authority. It casts the orthodoxy to the winds, questions what “right-thinking people will accept without question,” tears aside the veil of tacit censorship…

The prevailing pattern is one of indignant outrage over enemy crimes with much self-congratulatory appeal to high principle, combined with a remarkable ability “not to see” in the case of crimes for which we bear responsibility.