Mikhail Gorbachev

Certain people in the United States are driving nails into this structure of our relationship, then cutting off the heads. So the Soviets must use their teeth to pull them out.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

If the Russian word "perestroika" has easily entered the international lexicon, this is due to more than just interest in what is going on in the Soviet Union. Now the whole world needs restructuring, i.e. progressive development, a fundamental change.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

We could only solve our problems by cooperating with other countries. It would have been paradoxical not to cooperate. And therefore we needed to put an end to the Iron Curtain, to change the nature of international relations, to rid them of ideological confrontation, and particularly to end the arms race.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Our rockets can find Halley's comet, and fly to Venus with amazing accuracy, but side by side with these scientific and technical triumphs is an obvious lack of efficiency in using scientific achievements for economic needs, and many Soviet household appliances are of poor quality.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

The Soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Why not?

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Dangers await only those who do not react to life.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I believe, as Lenin said, that this revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new forms of life.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

For a new type of progress throughout the world to become a reality, everyone must change. Tolerance is the alpha and omega of a new world order.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

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

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. Look at the sun. If there is no sun, then we cannot exist. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Preparing for my address I found in an old Russian encyclopedia a definition of "peace" as a "commune" — the traditional cell of Russian peasant life. I saw in that definition the people's profound understanding of peace as harmony, concord, mutual help, and cooperation. This understanding is embodied in the canons of world religions and in the works of philosophers from antiquity to our time.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Today, peace means the ascent from simple coexistence to cooperation and common creativity among countries and nations. And, ideally, peace means the absence of violence. It is an ethical value.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Our democracy is being born in pain. A political culture is emerging — one that presupposes debate and pluralism, but also legal order and, if democracy is to work, strong government authority based on one law for all. This process is gaining strength.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

After a time of rampant separatism and euphoria, when almost every village proclaimed sovereignty, a centripetal force is beginning to gather momentum, based on a more sensible view of existing realities and the risks involved. And this is what counts most now. There is a growing will to achieve consensus, and a growing understanding that we have a State, a country, a common life. This is what must be preserved first of all.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Democracy must learn to defend itself.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

The more I reflect on the current world developments, the more I become convinced that the world needs perestroika no less than the Soviet Union needs it.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

To me, it is self-evident that if Soviet perestroika succeeds, there will be a real chance of building a new world order. And if perestroika fails, the prospect of entering a new peaceful period in history will vanish, at least for the foreseeable future. I believe that the movement that we have launched towards that goal has fairly good prospects of success. After all, mankind has already benefited greatly in recent years, and this has created a certain positive momentum.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Have we not been able to cross the threshold of mistrust, though mistrust has not completely disappeared? Has not the political thinking in the world changed substantially? Does not most of the world community already regard weapons of mass destruction as unacceptable for achieving political objectives?

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I view the award of the Nobel Prize to me as an expression of understanding of my intentions, my aspirations, the objectives of the profound transformation we have begun in our country, and the ideas of new thinking. I see it as your acknowledgment of my commitment to peaceful means of implementing the objectives of perestroika.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I firmly came out in favor of the independence of nations and sovereignty for the republics. At the same time, I support the preservation of the union state and the integrity of this country. The developments took a different course. The policy prevailed of dismembering this country and disuniting the state, which is something I cannot subscribe to.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

All the half-hearted reforms - and there have been a lot of them - fell through, one after another. This country was going nowhere and we couldn't possibly live the way we did. We had to change everything radically. It is for this reason that I have never had any regrets that I did not use the capacity of General Secretary just to reign in this country for several years. I would have considered it an irresponsible and immoral decision.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

We're now living in a new world. And end has been put to the cold war and to the arms race, as well as to the mad militarization of the country, which has crippled our economy, public attitudes and morals. The threat of nuclear war has been removed.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I consider it vitally important to preserve the democratic achievements which have been attained in the last few years. We have paid with all our history and tragic experience for these democratic achievements, and they are not to be abandoned, whatever the circumstances, and whatever the pretexts. Otherwise, all our hopes for the best will be buried.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I began to feel the desire for something more; I wanted to do something to make things better.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

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.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

The Chernobyl disaster, more than anything else, opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression, to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue. It made absolutely clear how important it was to continue the policy of glasnost, and I must say that I started to think about time in terms of pre-Chernobyl and post-Chernobyl.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Americans have a severe disease — worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I express the very deepest condolences to the family of the deceased on whose shoulders rest major events for the good of the country and serious mistakes.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

We had 10 years after the Cold War to build a new world order and yet we squandered them. The United States cannot tolerate anyone acting independently. Every US president has to have a war.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

We desperately need to recognise that we are the guests, not the masters, of nature and adopt a new paradigm for development, based on the costs and benefits to all people, and bound by the limits of nature herself rather than the limits of technology and consumerism.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I was probably too liberal and democratic as regards Yeltsin. I should have sent him as ambassador to Great Britain or maybe a former British colony.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I think we need more young people; we need to elect young people to government. We need to give them a chance, in the media, in politics, in democracy.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I grew up in a family of peasants, and it was there that I saw the way that, for example, our wheat fields suffered as a result of dust storms, water erosion and wind erosion; I saw the effect of that on life - on human life.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

I think the environmental problem will be the number one item on the agenda of the 21st century... This is a problem that cannot be postponed.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

If not me, who? And if not now, when?

— Mikhail Gorbachev

There should be competition and exchanges between different countries, but there are certainly certain universal values, and that is freedom and democracy.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

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.

— Mikhail Gorbachev