Russia Quotes - Page 23

• Most British playwrights of my generation, as well as younger folks, apparently feel somewhat obliged to Russian literature - and not only those writing for theatres. Russian literature is part of the basic background knowledge for any writer. So there is nothing exceptional in the interest I had towards Russian literature and theatre. Frankly, I couldn't image what a culture would be like without sympathy towards Russian literature and Russia, whether we'd be talking about drama or Djagilev.

  Tom Stoppard

  Drama, Writing, Talking

  Source: news.postimees.ee

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• If anything qualifies as an irony of history it would be this: that Marx and Engels throughout the nineteenth century wrote about America the United States as the great country of the future, of freedom and equality and a good life for the working man, and a country of revolution and emancipation, and of Russia as the great country of despotism, backwardness, savagery and superstition.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Country, Good Life, Men

  Source: www.heavenonearthdocumentary.com

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• Clearly, Russia has lied to the world about what's going on in Ukraine. They have clearly violated the cease-fire agreements.

  Leon Panetta

  Fire, Ukraine, Agreement

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Every woman with a career has to make sacrifices when it comes to her children. It's no different with me, as a political activist, than with businesswomen, of which there are thankfully more and more in Russia. Or a female cabinet minister.

  Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

  Children, Sacrifice, Careers

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• It will be difficult, even painful, but democracy will prevail in Russia. There will be no dictatorship, although relapses into authoritarianism are possible.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Democracy, Painful, Relapse

  "'They Were Truly Idiots'". Interview with Matthias Schepp and Christian Neef, www.spiegel.de. August 16, 2011.

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• In Russia, there are those who make their money in criminal ways, but I earn everything myself.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Criminals, Way

  "'They Were Truly Idiots'". Interview with Matthias Schepp and Christian Neef, www.spiegel.de. August 16, 2011.

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• If somewhere is a deficiency the normal American answer would have been well then, let's spend some more money, build some more weapons and deploy them. That's the normal way of thinking of the military, in America not only but also all over the place, but America or Russia or other countries.

  Helmut Schmidt

  Country, Military, Thinking

  WGBH-TV Interview, lsopenvault01.wgbh.org. November 12, 1987.

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• But how can you speed up the transformation of society in a country as large as Russia? Those sounding the moral outcry are the ones who are trying to dictate their standards from the outside. Of course, that isn't the right way to go either. One cannot impose democracy from the other side of national borders, which is something we ourselves experienced during the communist era. The West's policies toward Eastern Europe, the Helsinki process - none of that really helped us.

  Vaclav Klaus

  Country, Europe, Democracy

  "'The Past Is the Past'". Interview with Christian Neef and Jan Puhl, Renata Hanusova, www.spiegel.de. March 13, 2006.

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• Russia doesn't want any arms race. Russia would not engage in the arms race. We have enough technological means to provide not very expensive answer to the efforts to build missile defense.

  Sergey Lavrov

  Mean, Race, Effort

  Source: theinternationalreporter.org

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• I'm proud of Russia, that's true. And we have something to be proud of, but we do not have any obsession with being a superpower in the international arena.

  Vladimir Putin

  Proud, Arena, Obsession

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• Russia has not taken part and is not going to take part in any actions aimed at removing legitimate government.

  Vladimir Putin

  Taken, Government, Action

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• We had in the West a very romantic vision of Russia back in 1991, when the Soviet Union died and whatever is Russia began to emerge. And we began to think of it as a democracy. We're going to bring it into the West. All is going to be wonderful. That was never in the cards.

  Marvin Kalb

  Thinking, Vision, Democracy

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Vladimir Putin is a Russian czar. He's kind of a mix of Peter the Great and Stalin. He's got both in his veins. And he looks out first and foremost for the national security interests of Russia. He accepts that, in Eastern Europe, that is a Russian backyard, that is a Russian sphere of influence. Ukraine lives most uncomfortably and unhappily in a Russian backyard.

  Marvin Kalb

  Ukraine, Europe, Backyards

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• If anything good is going to emerge out of this, it's going to be the result of an acceptable modus vivendi between Ukraine and Russia. The two of them will have to get together at some point. It is going to be a result that many people in the West will not like, because Russia, as the bigger power, is going to get the better of the deal. So, a lot of people will say, that's appeasement. That's this - that - it's reality.

  Marvin Kalb

  Reality, Ukraine, Two

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Russia can never be an empire unless it is in control of Ukraine.

  Marvin Kalb

  Ukraine, Empires

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Well, we have got to understand, for example, Russia is an orthodox Christian nation. So is Ukraine. That happened in 988 in Crimea, a place called Kievan Rus, which was the Russia around Kiev at that time. It's 1,000 years ago, but, to a Russian, it's yesterday.

  Marvin Kalb

  Christian, Ukraine, Years

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• we are dealing with a return to what might be a far more normal relationship between the West and Russia. Russia is what it is that we see. It's not dressed up in its birthday costume. It is what it is. It regards its national interests as important enough to fight for. And the difference on the whole Ukraine situation is that the Russians are prepared to fight for their position on Ukraine, and the West is not.

  Marvin Kalb

  Fighting, Ukraine, Differences

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Putin is a despot, and he's a very good despot. And he will see things in a narrow way. What is good for Russia? That is what he will do. If that's represented by a move toward the Baltic, that would be very dangerous, but he would do it, on the assumption that he would ask himself the question: I am prepared to fight for Estonia. Is the United States? Is Germany? Is Britain, France?

  Marvin Kalb

  Moving, Fighting, United States

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The China of the 1970s was a communist dictatorship. The China of the twenty-first century is a one-party state without a firm ideological foundation, more similar to Mexico under the PRI than Russia under Stalin. But the measurement of the political and the economic evolution has not yet been completed, and is one of the weak points of the system.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Party, Political, Foundation

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Deng Xiaoping thought of himself as a great revolutionary and a great reformer. He had dismantled the Chinese communist management of the economy. In my next-to-last conversation with him, which was about six months before Tiananmen Square, he said to me that his aim would be the next phase to reduce the Communist Party to philosophical issues. And I said, "What's a philosophical issue?" And he said, "Well, like if we make an alliance with Russia." Given his view of Russia, that was not the likeliest thing that would ever happen.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Philosophical, Party, Views

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• There is scarcely a town or school in Russia from which boys have not run away to the war. Hundreds of girls have gone off in boys' clothes and tried to pass themselves off as boys and enlist as volunteers, and several have got through, since the medical examination is only a negligible formality required in one place, forgotten in another.

  Stephen Graham

  Girl, Running, War

  Stephen Graham (1915). “Russia in 1916”

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• If I correctly understand the goal of American policy, one wishes Russia to be a partner.

  Gerhard Schroder

  Goal, Wish, Partners

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• Ideas in modern Russia are machine-cut blocks coming in solid colors; the nuance is outlawed, the interval walled up, the curve grossly stepped.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Block, Cutting, Curves

  Vladimir Nabokov (1992). “Pale fire”

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• [In Moscow] we got through to [Soviet leaders] Brezhnev and Kosygin on the telephone. I think it was because nobody had ever tried to call them at home before.

  Ross Perot

  Funny, Humorous, Home

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• The public negotiations and secret intrigues of the English (Jews) and the French (Jews) have been employed for centuries in every court and country in Europe. Look back to the history of Spain, Holland, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Italy and Turkey for the last hundred years...all the power of Europe will be continually maneuvering with us to work us into the real or imaginary balance of power.

  John Adams

  Country, Real, Turkeys

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