- Statesman | March 2, 1931 -
Sometimes it's difficult to accept, to recognise one's own mistakes, but one must do it. I was guilty of overconfidence and arrogance, and I was punished for that.
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended. But the world could not continue developing as it had, with the stark menace of nuclear war ever present.
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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.
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The world will not accept dictatorship or domination.
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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.
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If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.
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I think God has some mechanism that he uses to punish those that make mistakes.
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On the day I became Soviet leader, in March 1985, I had a special meeting with the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries and told them: 'You are independent, and we are independent. You are responsible for your policies, we are responsible for ours. We will not intervene in your affairs, I promise you.'
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Political leaders still think things can be done through force, but that cannot solve terrorism. Backwardness is the breeding ground of terror, and that is what we have to fight.
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A society should never become like a pond with stagnant water, without movement. That's the most important thing.
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If not me, who? And if not now, when?
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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.
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