Boris Yeltsin

Statesman

1931-02-01 – 2007-04-23

Boris Yeltsin was a Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation.

Quotes by Boris Yeltsin

There were no strategic mistakes that could affect Russia's history and it further development. No, there were no such mistakes. Tactical errors were made in some less significant options, problems and so on. But, on the whole, Russia embarked on a correct path and it changed.
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There are numerous bugbears in the profession of a politician. First, ordinary life suffers. Second, there are many temptations to ruin you and those around you. And I suppose third, and this is rarely discussed, people at the top generally have no friends.
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You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long.
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It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts.
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A total of 1,580 people, the civilian population, suffered as a result of the bloody wave of terrorist acts that swept over Moscow and other towns and villages of our country.
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The Soviet Union could not exist without the image of the empire. The image of the empire could not exist without the image of force. The USSR ended the moment the first hammer pounded the Berlin Wall.
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Money, big money (which is actually a relative concept) is always, under any circumstances, a seduction, a test of morals, a temptation to sin.
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There are numerous bugbears in the profession of politician. First, ordinary everyday life suffers. Second, there are many temptations to ruin you and those around you. And I suppose, third, and this is rarely discussed, people at the top generally have no friends.
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A politician must have some scruples, a certain decency; he cannot smear himself in the mud for the sake of a high ideal.
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The main problem with being president is the constant sense that you are inside a glass bowl for everyone to see, or in a kind of barometric chamber with an artificial atmosphere where you must stay all the time.
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We Russians are already living, not getting ready to live.
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Not a single reform effort in Russia has ever been completed.
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