Vladimir Putin

In many countries today, moral and ethical norms are being reconsidered; national traditions, differences in nation and culture are being erased.

The worst thing for a politician is to try and cling to power by every possible means, and focus only on that.

Economic activity is moving from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific ocean… Russia has a certain natural advantage because it also borders the Pacific Ocean.

Overall, we are moving in the right direction. We have started on the trajectory toward robust economic growth in Russia. Yes, this growth is humble, small, but it is also not a fall. Growth was at 1.5 percent last year.

The task of the government is not only to pour honey into a cup, but sometimes to give bitter medicine.

NATO was built to counteract the Soviet Union in its day and time. At this point there is no threat coming from the Soviet Union, because there is no Soviet Union anymore. And where there was the Soviet Union once, there is now a number of countries, among them the new and democratic Russia.

I think in defeat you grope for things that are happy, and it’s hard.

…corporations are fundamentally illegitimate, …they don’t have to exist at all in their modern form. Just as other oppressive institutions – slavery, say, or royalty – have been changed or eliminated, so corporate power can be changed of eliminated.

Whoever is the first to cry ‘Stop the thief’ is the one who is guilty.

Would I do business with Putin? Sure. And I’d challenge him on human rights in Russia, challenge him on these issues and challenge him on that whole basis of that relationship.

Individual liberty…demonstrate[s] that some manners of living are more successful than others.

We, in Syria, our point of view stems from our experience.

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‘Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?

Another way to solve the traffic problems of this country is to pass a law that only paid-for cars be allowed to use the highways.

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.

The social system is taking on a form in which finding out what you want to do is less and less of an option because your life is too structured, organised, controlled and disciplined.

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.

Why did the U.S. decide to normalize relations with Cuba?…Not a magnanimous gesture of courage to bring Cuba-to protect Cuba from its isolation, to save them from their isolation; quite the opposite, it was to save the U.S. from its isolation with the rest of the world.

When the victims are classified as less than human … Communists, terrorists, or whatever may be the contemporary term of art – their extermination raises no moral qualms. And the agents of extermination are praiseworthy moderates-our Nazis …

Debate cannot be stilled, and indeed, in a properly functioning system of propaganda, it should not be, because it has a system-reinforcing character if constrained within proper bounds. What is essential is to set the bounds firmly.

About 70% of the public, the lowest 70% on the income scale, are pretty much disenfranchised. Their attitudes have no detectable influence on the policies of their own representatives. As you move up the scale you get a bit more influence. When you get to the top, policy is made.