Joseph Stalin
Politician, Revolutionary
"Great Britain provided time; the United States provided money and Soviet Russia provided blood."
Russia quotes
Russia
1.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Joseph Stalin
Politician, Revolutionary
"By May, 1st, 1937, there should not be one single church left within the borders of Soviet Russia, and the idea of God will have been banished from the Soviet Union as a remnant of the Middle Ages, which has been used for the purpose of oppressing the working classes."
Otto von Bismarck
Statesman, Chancellor
"Do not expect that once taking advantage of Russia's weakness, you will receive dividends forever. Russian has always come for their money. And when they come - do not rely on an agreement signed by you, you are supposed to justify. They are not worth the paper it is written. Therefore, with the Russian is to play fair, or do not play."
Otto von Bismarck
Statesman, Chancellor
"The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia."
Joseph Stalin
Politician, Revolutionary
"As we know, the goal of every struggle is victory. But if the proletariat is to achieve victory, all the workers, irrespective of nationality, must be united. Clearly, the demolition of national barriers and close unity between the Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Polish, Jewish and other proletarians is a necessary condition for the victory of the proletariat of all Russia."
Explore further
Topics related to Russia
Browse quotes that often appear alongside russia — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Russia quotes (page 1 of 61)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticise the Government. Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God."
Read quote
86 likes
"The success of the Allies in the west was in a measure offset by Teutonic victories in the east. When the invasion of Belgium began, Russia made immediate efforts to counteract by invasion of East Prussia."
Read quote
64 likes
"My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes."
Read quote
60 likes
"Your map of Africa is really quite nice. But my map of Africa lies in Europe. Here is Russia, and here... is France, and we're in the middle - that's my map of Africa."
Read quote
58 likes
"My father's father came from Russia; my mother came from Romania."
Read quote
57 likes
"I would like to go to Russia very much — although the bastards murdered half my family."
Read quote
51 likes
"If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, Maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. ... But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right."
Read quote
51 likes
"Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen."
Read quote
38 likes
"In 1491 the Inka ruled the greatest empire on earth. Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, bigger than Ivan the Great’s expanding Russia, bigger than Songhay in the Sahel or powerful Great Zimbabwe in the West Africa tablelands, bigger than the cresting Ottoman Empire, bigger than the Triple Alliance (as the Aztec empire is more precisely known), bigger by far than any European state, the Inka dominion extended over a staggering thirty-two degrees of latitude—as if a single power held sway from St. Petersburg to Cairo."
Read quote
36 likes
"Even the most favorable outcome of the war will never lead to the decomposition of the main forces of Russia, which is based on millions of Russian ... The latter, even if they break up international treaties, just as quickly re-connect with each other, like pieces of a particle of mercury."
Read quote
27 likes
"Undoubtedly, our path is not of the easiest; but, just as undoubtedly, we are not to be frightened by difficulties. Paraphrasing from the well-known words of Luther, Russia might say: ‘Here I stand on the frontier between the old, capitalist world and the new, socialist world. Here on this frontier I unite the efforts of the proletarians of the West and of the peasantry of the East in order to shatter the old world. May the god of history be my aid!"
Read quote
26 likes
"A Russian should rejoice if Poland, the Baltic Provinces, Finland, Armenia, should be separated, freed from Russia; so with an Englishman in regard to Ireland, India and other possessions; and each should help to do this, because the greater the state, the more wrong and cruel is its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded. Therefore, if we really wish to be what we profess to be, we must not only cease our present desire for the growth of the state, but we must desire its decrease, its weakening, and help this forward with all our might."
Read quote
21 likes
"It will be undertaken, of course, in the June or July summit, and then to bring NATO closer to Russia or vice versa is a way to move toward integration - toward the integration of Europe."
Read quote
19 likes
"Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."
Read quote
19 likes
"We talk a great deal about Russia today, and I'm afraid that in twenty years, we and Russia will be more similar than different."
Read quote
18 likes
"Remind me: who was the greater mass murderer, Stalin or Hitler? Well, Stalin is thought to have been responsible for about 50 million deaths, and Hitler for a mere 25 million. What Hitler did in his concentration camps was equalled if not exceeded in foulness by the Soviet gulags, forced starvation and pogroms. What makes the achievements of communist Russia so special and different, that you can simper around in a CCCP T-shirt, while anyone demented enough to wear anything commemorating the Third Reich would be speedily banged away under the 1986 Public Order Act?"
Read quote
16 likes
"Paul Farmer has helped to build amazing health care system in one of the poorest areas of Haiti. He founded Partners in Health, which serves the destitute and the sick in many parts of the world from Haiti to Boston and from Russia to Peru."
Read quote
16 likes
"And I don't really have anyone upon whom I want to rain down my wrath," I said, because in truth I didn't. I always felt like you had to be important to have enemies. Example: Historically, Germany has had more enemies than Luxembourg, Margo Roth Spiegelman was Germany. And Great Britain. And the United States. And czarist Russia. Me, I'm Luxembourg. Just sitting around, tending sheep, and yodeling."
Read quote
16 likes
"I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I.'"
Read quote
15 likes
"The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia [was] the full, actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has to be or can ever be practiced."
Read quote
15 likes