Montreal, this wonderful town… Pearl of Canada, Pearl of the world. — Mikhail Gorbachev

The threat of a world war is no more. — Mikhail Gorbachev

The world will not accept dictatorship or domination. — Mikhail Gorbachev

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. — Mikhail Gorbachev

An awareness of the need for some kind of global government is gaining ground, one in which all members of the world community would take part. — Mikhail Gorbachev

It will not be enough to rely on experts. Ordinary citizens must become experts too. It will take public opinion on a wide scale to ensure that world leaders act. — Mikhail Gorbachev

There are dangerous trends–they are all in plain sight. i would single out two. they are the disregard for international law and the militarization of world politics. — Mikhail Gorbachev

In October 1917, we parted with the old world, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a new world, a world of Communism. We shall never turn off that road. — Mikhail Gorbachev

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. — Mikhail Gorbachev

The soviet people want full–blooded and unconditional democracy. — Mikhail Gorbachev

It will be difficult, even painful, but democracy will prevail in Russia. There will be no dictatorship, although relapses into authoritarianism are possible. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Contemporary social democracy is what I believe is the right concept. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Democracy must learn to defend itself. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Every part of our program of perestroika–and the program as a whole, for that matter–is fully based on the principle of more socialism and more democracy. — Mikhail Gorbachev

I think we need more young people; we need to elect young people to government. We need to give them a chance, in the media, in politics, in democracy. — Mikhail Gorbachev

There should be competition and exchanges between different countries, but there are certainly certain universal values, and that is freedom and democracy. — Mikhail Gorbachev

In effect, according to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible. By gaining democratic freedoms the working masses come to power. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Life punishes those who come too late. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Those who are late will be punished by life itself. — Mikhail Gorbachev

More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Dangers await only those who do not react to life. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full–blooded life. — Mikhail Gorbachev

I believe, as Lenin said, that this revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new forms of life. — Mikhail Gorbachev

What we’re talking about is creating new forms of life on the basis of new values. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Women prevent the threads of life from being broken. The finest minds have always understood the peacemaking role of women. — Mikhail Gorbachev

One day we took each other by the hand and went for a walk in the evening. And we walked like that for our whole life. — Mikhail Gorbachev

History punishes those that come late to it. — Mikhail Gorbachev

The forests of Russia and Brazil are the lungs of the Earth. — Mikhail Gorbachev

We are all passengers aboard one ship, the Earth, and we must not allow it to be wrecked. There will be no second Noah’s Ark. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Man is beginning to explore the galaxy. But how much remains undone on earth? — Mikhail Gorbachev

I envisage the prinicles of the Earth Charter to be a new form of the ten commandments. They lay the foundation for a sustainable global earth community. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Surely, God on high has not refused to give us enough wisdom to find ways to bring us an improvement in relations between the two great nations on earth. — Mikhail Gorbachev

I support freedom and I support a free market economy, but it should be a socially oriented market economy. I support globalization, but it should be globalization with a human face. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Nature is reminding us that it used to exist without human beings. — Mikhail Gorbachev

People, human beings with all their creative diversity, are the makers of history. — Mikhail Gorbachev

The human race has entered a stage where we are all dependent on each other. No other country or nation should be regarded in total separation from another, let alone pitted against another. — Mikhail Gorbachev

If current technological processes continue without change, the environment will change, and we, the human species, will either have to mutate or even die, to disappear, as many species have disappeared. — Mikhail Gorbachev

We used to have just one criterion and that was profit, and then another criterion was added–social welfare. Now we have to add the third important criterion, and that is nature and the environment. — Mikhail Gorbachev

We need a new system of values, a system of the organic unity between humankind and nature and the ethic of global responsibility. — Mikhail Gorbachev

To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. — Mikhail Gorbachev

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature. — Mikhail Gorbachev

A new generation of more educated people started to be active. Then society required freedom, society demanded freedom. — Mikhail Gorbachev

The model of the consumer society is something that will one day end. My personal view is that too much consumption is wrong. — Mikhail Gorbachev

A society should never become like a pond with stagnant water, without movement. That’s the most important thing. — Mikhail Gorbachev

America must be the teacher of democracy, not the advertiser of the consumer society. It is unrealistic for the rest of the world to reach the American living standard. — Mikhail Gorbachev

The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization. — Mikhail Gorbachev