Vladimir Putin Quotes

A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well but will sometimes strike on a rock. A republic is a raft that will never sink.

The sovereignty of republics is an historical inevitability.

I think that there is a limit on how far you can export democracy.

In today’s world, a government that controls a vast tract of territory may be less relevant than one that supports education and embraces a regulatory framework promoting innovation and investment.

Americans are properly Britons. They have the manners, habits, and ideas of Britons; and have been accustomed to a similar form of government. But Britons never could bear the extremes, either of monarchy or republicanism. Some of their Kings have aimed at despotism; but always failed. Repeated efforts have been made towards democracy, and they equally failed.

Of course I wrote most of the Constitution myself. I remember hesitating for a long time over the US presidential system. But it wouldn't have done — we were too trained in English democracy to sit down under a dictatorship which is what the American system really is.

A free and democratic society is not the norm. When you look to the history books, world history was not based on great democratic societies but on imperialism, absolute rule, kings, queens, monarchs, dictators.

Our system of government, our form of democracy, would not work for China, just like China's system would not work for us.

There's not a system better than another. There are some people better than others. I'm not anti-democracy, but there's no real system yet that has proven itself to be the right one.

Republics, like other forms of government, exist in history and can rise and fall.

We meet to validate the most basic of American principles, the principle of 'government by consent of the governed.' We take this historic step because the people of Alaska who elected you have come to see that their longstanding and unceasing protests against the restrictions, discriminations and exclusions to which we are subject have been unheeded by the colonialism that has ruled Alaska for 88 years.

It is important to remember there still exist other forms of government in the world today, and that dozens of foreign countries still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them..

The path to democratic capitalism ended the previous world order of empires..

It was always presumptuous to expect Russia, an ancient nation-state and proud empire of distinct culture with a tradition of autocracy, to become an Anglo-American democracy overnight - just as it is naive to expect it in other parts of the world.

Europe should be a continent of nation states who are free trading, with our own identities, not a bunch of Eurocrats nobody voted for.

Democratic self-government has manifestly brought benefits to India, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, South Africa, South Korea, and scores of nations all making their way in the world.

Either you support the existing global elite, or you want real change and believe in nation-state democracy.

If we looked in the world of 1945 and looked at the map of capitalist economies and democratic polities, they were the rare exception, not the norm.

We Estonians will do what is necessary to join the European Union.

If India is not too democratic, it will be like China in terms of development.

For most of history, almost everyone was poor. Power and wealth belonged to only a few.

Judging from the experience of the European War, imperialism renders no great benefit to any nation, whereas liberty for all nationalities is the only principle by which humanity will ever be saved.

Forcing some countries to accept democracy is something that should not be done.

Liberal democratic states can't remain globally competitive.

I spent a lot of time in Europe. I spent a lot of time in United States, I know what is modern standards of life... and always, if I return to my home country, I ask my country why very simple things that works everywhere else in the world doesn't work in Ukraine.