Mikhail Gorbachev

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

A society should never become like a pond with stagnant water, without movement. That's the most important thing.

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.

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.

What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars.

Ex-Presidents of the United States get state subsidies. Not so in Russia. You get no government support.

The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.

Democracy must learn to defend itself.

The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.

I paid too heavy a price for perestroika.

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.

America must be the teacher of democracy, not the advertiser of the consumer society. It is unrealistic for the rest of the world to reach the American living standard.

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.

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

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.

Sometimes people ask me why I began perestroika. Were the causes basically domestic or foreign? The domestic reasons were undoubtedly the main ones, but the danger of nuclear war was so serious that it was a no less significant factor.

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos.

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