Vladimir Putin

Despite all the achievements of civilisation, the human being is still one of the most vulnerable creatures on earth.

Political activities in Russia should be as transparent as possible. Financing political activities from abroad is something the state should keep an eye on.

Some experts believe that somebody is deceiving WikiLeaks, that its reputation is being undermined in order for it to be used for political purposes.

I believe that the presidential term should be limited.

The strengthening of our statehood is, at times, deliberately interpreted as authoritarianism.

Politics should not interfere with sports. And sports should impact politics.

American Communists have the opportunity to preach freely their ideas. It would be absolutely wrong to hold the Soviet government responsible for activities of the American Communists.

There can be no bosses in our country except the people. The job of the government is to serve, not to dominate.

As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.

Jeb said, ‘we were safe with my brother. We were safe.’ Well, the World Trade Center just fell down! Now, am I trying to blame him? I’m not blaming anybody. But the World Trade Center came down. So when he said, we were safe, that’s not safe.

[on Trump] But there are some pretty stable elements of his ideology, if you can even grant him that concept. One of them is: “Climate change is not taking place.” As he puts it: “Forget it.” And that’s almost a death knell for the species – not tomorrow, but the decisions we take now are going to affect things in a couple of decades, and in a couple of generations it could be catastrophic.

And is it not sects, bodies of definite, uncompromising principles, that lead us into revolutions?

I believe all people are good. Some just do bad things. I had a teacher – God bless him, he died a few years ago -Luther H. Henson. I was a student of his at the time I lost my mother. He was my one person that seemed like anything I wanted to know, I could ask him and he’d give me an answer that was right. He told me, ‘There’ll come a time when people won’t judge you by your color; they’ll judge you by your deeds; how you act and how you treat people.’ Hearing professor Henson say that made me think, and I guess sort of toe the line a little bit more. And later on I heard Dr. King say, ‘I have a dream, where you’ll be judged not by the colour of the skin…’ Of course, I’d been a man for years when Dr. King came along, but it hit me hard because it strengthened for me what prof Henson had already said when I was a boy.

Cointelpro really told you something about the government. Therefore, it was basically suppressed, it is still suppressed so that people don’t know anything about it. Watergate, on the other hand, was a minor scandal.

Nobody believes the official spokesman… but everybody trusts an unidentified source.

It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past.

The Recovery Act is working, but it’s going to continue to work. It’s not over. A lot’s going to happen this summer. And even after the summer, there’s more to come with the act.

We can make a rough distinction between the managerial class and the rest. The managers take part in decision-making in the state, the private economy, and the doctrinal institutions. The rest are to cede authority to state and private elites, to accept what they are told…

Economic control…is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served.

It’s dangerous when people are willing to give up their privacy.

Some experts believe that somebody is deceiving WikiLeaks, that its reputation is being undermined in order for it to be used for political purposes.