Mikhail Gorbachev Quotes - Page 3

Dangers await only those who do not react to life.

It is my firm belief that the infinite and uncontrollable fury of nuclear weapons should never be held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason.

We need a new system of values, a system of the organic unity between humankind and nature and the ethic of global responsibility.

On the day I became Soviet leader, in March 1985, I had a special meeting with the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries and told them: 'You are independent, and we are independent. You are responsible for your policies, we are responsible for ours. We will not intervene in your affairs, I promise you.'

Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended. But the world could not continue developing as it had, with the stark menace of nuclear war ever present.

We used to have just one criterion and that was profit, and then another criterion was added - social welfare. Now we have to add the third important criterion, and that is nature and the environment.

One of the reasons why this country undertook military action in Iraq was that there are quite a few problems here, and perhaps attention needed to be deflected from those problems. It sometimes seems that the U.S. economy works successfully only if it gets a stimulus from the defense industry. So perhaps in addition to showing the power and the might of the United States internationally, another reason was to help the defense industry and to help the U.S. economy recover.

It sometimes seems to me that some of our Western partners do not want Russia to fully recover. They would like Russia to be in a subdued state, and they want Russian resources to be used for the benefit of the U.S. economy.

I'm still committed to the socialist idea because the socialist idea, correctly understood, includes the principles of freedom and social justice. It also includes the recognition of the value of democracy. When we speak about social justice, it means that freedom should be used not only in the interest of profit but also in the interest of the advancement of the people who create all values.

Further global progress is now possible only through a quest for universal consensus in the movement towards a new world order.

Imagine a country that flies into space, launches Sputniks, creates such a defense system, and it can't resolve the problem of women's pantyhose. There's no toothpaste, no soap powder, not the basic necessities of life. It was incredible and humiliating to work in such a government.

Even today, a majority of people surveyed say that they regret the fact that the USSR collapsed. But only 9 percent say that they would want it back.

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.

In principle as a philosophy, a model of organising society, Communism has to be respected. As regards the use of certain methods to advance social justice and greater regulation by the state, there are certain methods that are useful. What we need is a new society, a new civilization and convergence of all that is best in both [Communism and Capitalism]

I support freedom and I support a free market economy, but it should be a socially oriented market economy. I support globalization, but it should be globalization with a human face.

When I cleared out Moscow apartment after stepping down as president, they found all kinds of wiring in the walls. It turned out that they had been spying on me all along.

With Yeltsin, the Soviet Union broke apart, the country was totally mismanaged, the constitution was not respected by the regions of Russia. The army, education and health systems collapsed. People in the West quietly applauded, dancing with and around Yeltsin. I conclude therefore that we should not pay too much attention to what the West is saying.

America has a right to be a leader. This leadership should be realized through partnership, not domination.

Life punishes those who come too late.

Nature is reminding us that it used to exist without human beings.

...the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant...has painfully affected the Soviet people, and shocked the international community. For the first time, we confront the real force of nuclear energy, out of control.

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.'

We were nearly one of the last to realize that in the age of information science the most expensive asset is knowledge.

Humankind has no option but to protect and live in harmony with its natural environment. However, it would be regrettable if in putting an end to revolutionary extremism, we should then come to environmental extremism. We should not forget that all extremes are the same.

We could still have continued the arms race, but the arms race was pointless, and it was another reason we decided to start perestroika. It was senseless to continue to accumulate weapons. We had enough weapons to destroy life on Earth 1,000 times, and therefore it was very clear to us that the arms race could spiral out of control. A conflict could have started, as both the Americans and the Soviets realized, not out of a wrong political decision but because of a failure in the command-and-control systems.