Mikhail Gorbachev Quotes

If greater openness is a key to economic success, I believe there is increasingly a need for openness in the political sphere as well.

I left Russia in 1993 optimistic that democracy had taken hold despite the obstacles.

Now it's time to focus on basics for people in our neighborhoods... and real ethics reform at City Hall.

Remarkably, governments are beginning to embrace the idea that nothing enhances democracy more than giving voice and information to everybody in the country. Why not open their books if they have nothing to hide?

Progressive change in this country has never come from above.

The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created

My goal for the Arab world is to change the status quo, which is horrible politically, religiously, economically, in every way.

Dialoging is the first principle of good government.

The collapse of a closed society does not always lead to an open society.

Self government cannot work if the people do not know what their rulers are doing and why.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

A very great percentage of our people see only from $200 to $600 cash in hand during the course of a year, and many, many others have incomes under $1000 or ranging from $1000 to $2000 a year. This problem involves so many people that we cannot just say "Let the government solve it." We, as a people, must solve it by deciding on the type of social and economic philosophy which we wish to see established in this country. When we know what changes we want, we can then set government machinery to work to accomplish them, but the people themselves must know what it is they wish to do.

Whoever wants to reach socialism by any other path than that of political democracy will inevitably arrive at conclusions that are absurd and reactionary both in the economic and the political sense.

“Activist” is a dirty word in the United States. We are not activists for any particular political position on most issues. We are activists only for ending government secrecy.

In a political sense, there is one problem that underlies all of the others. The problem is making government sufficiently responsive to the people.

Let the People Rule!

The only thing which is important to do is to tell about the values I share. It's to say how important liberalization of Russia is.

Right to Information is a small concrete step in making our polity more democratic.

Beyond providing some level of scrutiny of Kenyan MPs, we built Mzalendo to demonstrate that there is only so much bemoaning you can do about your representation.

The American people deserve their government to be open and accountable.

Transparency and accountability must be restored in politics.

Transparency in government, no less than transparency in choosing government, remains a vital national interest in a democracy.

Obama's openness is a welcome change from his predecessor, who went all the way to the Supreme Court to hide the RSVP list for a single policy meeting. And transparency is intrinsically good, since in a democracy, very little government activity is legitimately secret.

No dictatorship can be sustained within the context of an information revolution.

If in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave.