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Quotes by Russian Authors
"A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer."
"The novel moves like all the arts. It's transforming itself all the time."
"The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in nature, in society, in man himself."
"And this system sorted out the Chechen war in just 20 days. This way, I used the President's power, he didn't use me. It wasn't hard for me to leave - it isn't my scene. I have nothing to do there."
"For the whole of Western Europe, I know the business community quite good."
"You need to find somebody who will speak the same language. We understand that we couldn't have any kind of discussion without permission, without a legal framework behind it."
"For to tempt and to be tempted are things very nearly allied... whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of."
"However, do you know what? I am convinced that fellows like me who live in dark cellars must be kept under restraint. They may be able to live in their dark cellars for forty years and never open their mouths, but the moment they get into the light of day and break out they may talk and talk and talk..."
"There is a state that is able to understand the demand in the economy. That state should use prices as an instrument for implementation of this understanding."
"Only by observing this condition would the results of our work be regarded as fully conclusive and as having elucidated the normal course of the phenomena."
"I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge."
"The directors thought, They understand nothing in the real economy, in real life. They read some stupid books, and they came from the moon to the earth, and maybe in one month they will disappear."
"I consider marriage a very important institution, but it is important when and if two people have found the person with whom they wish to spend the rest of their lives-a question of which no man or woman can be automatically certain. When one is certain that one's choice is final, then marriage is, of course, a desirable state. But this does not mean that any relationship based on less than total certainty is improper. I think the question of an affair or a marriage depends on the knowledge and the position of the two persons involved and should be left up to them. Either is moral, provided only that both parties take the relationship seriously and that it is based on values."
"I went to government for making these changes. I remember a number of guys among these important figures."
"Science, which cuts its way through the muddy pond of daily life without mingling with it, casts its wealth to right and left, but the puny boatmen do not know how to fish for it."
"Do you think when two representatives holding diametrically opposing views get together and shake hands, the contradictions between our systems will simply melt away? What kind of a daydream is that?"
"When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't be cured."
"To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God."
"Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing."
"I mean that at least 80% of the Russian people feel destitute. It's the people who had their past and future taken from them - they don't get paid - many of them face a wall. They have nowhere to go."
"During the election in 1989, there was the first Soviet election with alternative candidates to local government. I myself arranged special training for them."
"Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others."
"As no outward motion or change, when normal, in man's external body can take place unless provoked by an inward impulse, given through one of the three functions named, so with the external or manifested Universe."
"As I understand I took most so-called democratic states about 200 years on average to build their democracies. That is why, when we go to sleep under totalitarian rule and wake up in a democracy, it makes me laugh."
"Your commanders have ordered you to storm the White House and to arrest me. But I as the elected President of Russia give you the order to turn your tanks and not to fight against your own people."
"The diversification of the people's demand could not be followed by the state apparatus."
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