Quotes by Mikhail Gorbachev

• Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.
• More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life.
• My life's work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.
• Sometimes when you stand face to face with someone, you cannot see his face.
• The market came with the dawn of civilization and it is not an invention of capitalism. If it leads to improving the well-being of the people there is no contradiction with socialism.
• The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.
• The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.
• 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.
• What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars.
• Surely, God on high has not refused to give us enough wisdom to find ways to bring us an improvement in relations between the two great nations on earth.
• We are not abandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone to abandon theirs.
• I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal.
• The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.
• 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.
• Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.
• 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.'
• Democracy must learn to defend itself.
• I believe, as Lenin said, that this revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new forms of life.
• 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.
• If not me, who? And if not now, when?
• If people don't like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.
• If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.
• It is better to discuss things, to argue and engage in polemics than make perfidious plans of mutual destruction.