As for Europe, its claims towards Russia are fairly transparently based on fears about energy, unjustified fears at that.

We have to condemn publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others... When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers ... we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.

I have always had that inner drive, since my birth. And I have always devoted myself gladly to work - to work and to the struggle.

Human beings are better and lazier than their rules and instructions.

You took my freedom away a long time ago and you can't give it back because you haven't got it yourself.

I think the gap between the rich and the poor is a dangerous phenomenon in Russia and it needs the attention of the state. The only reasonable way to correct the situation today is not to go after big businesses, but to give breathing room to medium and small businesses. That means protecting citizens and small entrepreneurs from arbitrary rule and from corruption. It means investing the revenues from the national natural resources into the national infrastructure, education and health care. And we must learn to do so without shameful theft and embezzlement.

A forest doesn't weep over one tree.