Quotes from Mikhail Gorbachev

If people don't like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.

The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.

What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars.

Man is beginning to explore the galaxy. But how much remains undone on earth?

You cannot go to sleep with one form of economic system and wake up the next morning with another.

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature.

Nature is reminding us that it used to exist without human beings.

Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.

Today, peace means the ascent from simple coexistence to cooperation and common creativity among countries and nations.

We are not abandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone to abandon theirs.

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

Politics is my second love, next to my love for Raisa [Gorbacheva].

I say again that I am an atheist. I do not believe in God.

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.

God has given us enough wisdom to make improvements in our relations.

When future generations judge those who came before them on environmental issues, they may conclude "they didn't know": let us not go down in history as the generations who knew, but didn't care

History is a capricious creature. It depends on who writes it.

In effect, according to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible. By gaining democratic freedoms the working masses come to power.

It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times.

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.

Those who are late will be punished by life itself.

Every country should conduct its own reforms, should develop its own model, taking into account the experience of other countries, whether close neighbours or far away countries.

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.

More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life.