Americans have a severe disease - worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex.
Mikhail GorbachevRead
It is better to discuss things, to argue and engage in polemics than make perfidious plans of mutual destruction.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Engaging in open discussion is preferable to plotting harmful actions against each other.
This quote emphasizes the importance of dialogue and debate over scheming harmful intentions. Mikhail Gorbachev advocates for constructive communication as a means to resolve conflicts rather than resorting to destructive plots that could lead to mutual harm. This perspective highlights the belief that understanding different viewpoints can prevent catastrophic outcomes.
Themes
DiscussionPolemicsDialogueDestructionCommunicationConflict
In practice
Example use cases
During a peace conference, one might quote this to encourage open dialogue.
More from Mikhail Gorbachev
All quotes βGentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about Glasnost and Perestroika and democracy in the coming years. They are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal changes in the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep.
Mikhail GorbachevRead
The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.
Mikhail GorbachevRead
To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.
Mikhail GorbachevRead
New approaches are needed, new orientations in both thought and action. We must make the transition to a new civilization...We are talking of a transition toward a new civilization. No one knows what it will be like. What is important is to orient in that direction... I am convinced that a new civilization will inevitably take on certain features that are characteristic of, or inherent in, the socialist ideal.
Mikhail GorbachevRead
According to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible.... The essence of perestroika lies in the fact that it unites socialism with democracy and revives the Leninist concept of socialist construction both in theory and in practice. We want more socialism and, therefore, more democracy.
Mikhail GorbachevRead
Similar quotes
Hell is the backdrop that reveals the profound and unbelievable grace of the cross. It brings to light the enormity of our sin and therefore portrays the undeserved favor of God in full color.
Francis ChanRead
Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think that money was so valuable?
Kurt VonnegutRead
I'm not good at finding 'encouraging' features in American culture. I doubt that aesthetic literacy has much of a future here.
Philip RothRead
We can suspend disbelief about Harry Potter, and we do the same thing with God, and we do the same thing with human rights, and we do the same thing with money.
Yuval Noah HarariRead
All men have the stars," he answered, "but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travellers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all the stars are silent. You--you alone--will have the stars as no one else has them--
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyRead
A mouth of no distinction but well practiced, before I entered my teens, in irony. For what is irony but the repository of hurt? And what is hurt but the repository of hope?
Joyce Carol OatesRead