Boris Yeltsin Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

You can build a throne with bayonets, but it's difficult to sit on it.

Boris Yeltsin
Dissidents should be paid 13 months' salary for a year, otherwise our mindless unanimity will bring us to an even more hopeless state of stagnation. 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.

Boris Yeltsin
We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. Freedom is like that. It's like air. When you have it, you don't notice it.

Boris Yeltsin
A man must live like a great brilliant flame and burn as brightly as he can. In the end he burns out. But this is far better than a mean little flame.

Boris Yeltsin
Not a single reform effort in Russia has ever been completed.

Boris Yeltsin
I should not interfere with this natural march of history. To hold onto power for another half-year, when the country has a strong man who is worthy of being president and with whom practically every Russian today ties his hopes for the future? Why should I interfere with him? Why wait still another half-year? No, that's not for me! It's simply not in my character!

Boris Yeltsin
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.

Boris Yeltsin
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.

Boris Yeltsin
A politician must have some scruples, a certain decency; he cannot smear himself in the mud for the sake of a high ideal.

Boris Yeltsin
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.

Boris Yeltsin
I am convinced that the moment is coming when, with its message of eternal, universal values, it will come to the aid of our society. For in these words: "Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," lie those very moral principles that will enable us to survive even the most critical situations.

Boris Yeltsin
Storm clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country... They must not be allowed to bring eternal night.

Boris Yeltsin
One could see that what you are writing was that today's meeting with President Bill Clinton was going to be a disaster. Now, for the first time, I can tell you that you are a disaster.

Boris Yeltsin
A sense of proportion and humanitarian action are not issues for terrorists. Their aim is that of killing and destroying.

Boris Yeltsin
I believe in this tragic hour you can make the right choice. The honor and glory of Russian men of arms shall not be stained with the blood of the people.

Boris Yeltsin
Liberty sets the mind free, fosters independence and unorthodox thinking and ideas. But it does not offer instant prosperity or happiness and wealth to everyone. This is something that politicians in particular must keep in mind.

Boris Yeltsin
I cannot shift the blame for Chechnya, for the sorrow of numerous mothers and fathers. I made the decision, therefore I am responsible.

Boris Yeltsin
Let's not talk about Communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky.

Boris Yeltsin
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.

Boris Yeltsin