Gorbachev Quotes

• Ronald Reagan reached out to Gorbachev. At the same time, we were pushing back against the Soviets all over the world. He was able to do two things at once, and it worked out very well for us.

  Daniel Fried

  Two, Pushing Back, World

  Source: www.politico.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

  Ronald Reagan

  Wall, Memorable, Europe

  Remarks at Brandenburg Gate, West Berlin, Germany, 12 June 1987

  94 Copy quote

  Show source

• The words spoken by the leader of the free world can expand the frontiers of freedom or shrink them. When Ronald Reagan called on Gorbachev to 'tear down this wall,' a surge of confidence rose that would ultimately breach the bounds of the evil empire.

  Mitt Romney

  Confidence, Wall, Evil

  "Never Retreat, Never Apologize" by David Weigel, www.slate.com. July 25, 2012.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I like Mr Gorbachev, we can do business together.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Business, War, Together

  The Times 18 Dec. 1984

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I left Gorbachev's office thinking that everything about him was outsized: his achievements, his mistakes, and, now, his vanity and bitterness.

  David Remnick

  Mistake, Thinking, Vanity

  8 Copy quote

• Mr. Gorbachev has apparently stumbled onto one of the best-kept secrets in recent Soviet history: Communism doesn't work.

  Frank Zappa

  Funny, Humorous, Russia

  Frank Zappa, Peter Occhiogrosso (1990). “Real Frank Zappa Book”, p.330, Simon and Schuster

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

  Ronald Reagan

  Wall, Patriotic, Europe

  Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate, delivered 12 June 1987, West Berlin

  64 Copy quote

  Show source

• Over the course of the year 1990, the then Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had many conversations with President [Mikhail] Gorbachev and other Soviet officials.

  Vladimir Putin

  Years, President, Ministers

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• An old Russian woman goes into Kremlin, gets an audience with Mikhail Gorbachev and says, In America anyone can go to the White House, walk up to Reagan's desk and say, 'I don't like the way you are running the country.' Gorbachev replied, You can do the same thing in the Soviet Union. You can go into the Kremlin, walk up to my desk and say 'I don't like the way Reagan is running his country.'

  Ronald Reagan

  Running, Country, War

  24 Copy quote

• The role of Ronald Reagan had been deliberately diminished; the role of the Europeans, who, with the exception of Helmet Kohl, were often keen to undermine America when it mattered, had been sanitized; and the role of Mr. Gorbachev, who had failed spectacularly in his declared objective of saving communism and the Soviet Union, had been absurdly misunderstood.

  Margaret Thatcher

  America, Misunderstood, Unions

  "Rupert Murdoch's inaugural Margaret Thatcher lecture" by Rupert Murdoch, www.theguardian.com. October 21, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries. That's what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That's what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That's what Nixon did with Mao. I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we're going to wipe you off the planet.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Strong, Mean

  "Mccain’s Newest Ad: Reprising a (Debunked) Lie" by David Corn, www.motherjones.com. October 28, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Gorbachev gave us freedom of worship and freedom of speech and freedom to see what was going on and freedom to vote, but that freedom won't last unless it is underpinned by economic freedom.

  Boris Yeltsin

  War, Freedom Of Speech, Lasts

  32 Copy quote

• Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. And get a massage - you look really stressed

  Ronald Reagan

  Wall, Stressed, Tears

  4 Copy quote

• ... it's Bush's baby, even if he shares its popularization with Gorbachev. Forget the Hitler 'new order' root; F.D.R. used the phrase earlier.

  William Safire

  Baby, Nwo, Roots

  7 Copy quote

• I love art. I used to have a painting of Mikhail Gorbachev that was given to my family by Gorbachev.

  Armie Hammer

  Art, Painting, My Family

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• He [Mikhail Gorbachev] has, as many great leaders have, impressive eyes....There's a kind of laser-beam stare, a forced quality, you get from Gorbachev that does not come across as something peaceful within himself. It's the look of a kind of human volcano, or he'd probably like to describe it as a human nuclear energy plant.

  Dan Rather

  Eye, Volcanoes, Leader

  4 Copy quote

• Russia, despite its heavy flirtation with capitalism and some quite unsavory oligarchs, is still building its foreign policy on the Soviet ideals of internationalism, solidarity and logic. And even domestically, President [Vladin]Putin is slowly, step-by-step, restoring many important Soviet achievements that were torpedoed by a nitwit, and one gangster - [Mikhail] Gorbachev and [Boris] Yeltsin.

  Andre Vltchek

  Russia, Achievement, President

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Both the President and Mr Gorbachev have said that they want to see a world without nuclear weapons. I cannot see a world without nuclear weapons. Let me be practical about it. The knowledge is there to make them. So do not go too hard for that pie in the sky because, while everyone would like to see it, I do not believe it is going to come about.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Believe, Sky, Pie

  9 Copy quote

• I disapproved of the fact that the government here refused to adopt the few reforms that Gorbachev put over in the field of media and the field of culture.

  Stefan Heym

  Government, Media, Reform

  4 Copy quote

• For fifty years, we heard NATO is necessary to save Western Europe from the Russian hordes, you know the slave state, stuff I was taking about. In 1990-91, no Russian hordes. Okay, what happens? Well there are actually visions of the future system that were presented. One was [Mikhail] Gorbachev. He called for a Eurasian security system, with no military blocs. He called it a Common European Home. No military blocs, no Warsaw Pact. Just an integrated security system with no conflicts.Now the other vision was presented by George Bush, this is the "statesman".

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Home, Security Systems

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a great honor for me to be presented the award by Mikhail Gorbachev and also to be acknowledged with the World Actress Award at the Women World Awards Gala 2005.

  Teri Hatcher

  Awards, Honor, World

  4 Copy quote

• I cannot imagine how any diplomat, or any dramatist, could improve on (Ronald Reagan's) words to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit: 'Let me tell you why it is we distrust you.' Those words are candid and tough and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust.

  Margaret Thatcher

  New Beginnings, New Relationship, Diplomats

  Remarks on the Passing of Ronald Reagan, tape delivered on 11 June 2004

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• [Mikhail] Gorbachev complained. He was told look, there's nothing on paper. People didn't actually say it but the implication was look, if you are dumb enough to take faith in a gentleman's agreement with us, that's your problem. NATO expanded to East Germany.

  Noam Chomsky

  East Germany, Agreement, People

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you read history, right, if you read [Mikhail] Gorbachev's memoirs, Gorbachev memoirs said the key thing in winning the Cold War was our insistence on nuclear defense, because they knew they couldn't match us.

  Rudy Giuliani

  War, Winning, Keys

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Here I was in Estonia, doing a concert for 5,000 people, and not many people know the song My Way - Gorbachev in the 80s, My Way had just become a famous song, and [Mikhail] Gorbachev in a satirical, kind of cynical manner coined the term the Sinatra Doctrine and My Way was the song because the Baltic states in the Warsaw Pact wanted to go their own way and secede from the Soviet Union, so joking he says," Yeah, we've got the Sinatra Doctrine now."

  Robert Davi

  Song, People, Cynical

  "INTERVIEW: Actor Robert Davi On His Frank Sinatra Tribute, His Hamptons Roots, 'Davi’s Way' And More". Interview with Nicole Barylski, www.hamptons.com.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source