"You can build a throne with bayonets, but it's difficult to sit on it."

Boris Yeltsin Politics See all quotes by Boris Yeltsin →

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More by Boris Yeltsin

“Let's not talk about Communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky.”

“Your commanders have ordered you to storm the White House and to arrest me. But I as the elected President of Russia give you the order to turn your tanks and not to fight against your own people.”

“A sense of proportion and humanitarian action are not issues for terrorists. Their aim is that of killing and destroying.”

“In quotes: Reactions to Yeltsin death”

“Yeltsin laid the foundation for the Russia Putin built", by Felix RieferDeutsche Welle”

“I cannot shift the blame for Chechnya, for the sorrow of numerous mothers and fathers. I made the decision, therefore I am responsible.”

Resonant Thoughts

"The idea that I'm a homosexual thrill killer, that I stroll down the streets and stalk young boys and slaughter them... Hell, if you could see my schedule, my work schedule, you knew damn well that I …"

— John Wayne Gacy

Art1942–1994

#humor

"All the promises made in the treaty have never been fulfilled. The object of the whites is to crush the Indians down to nothing. The Great Spirit will judge these things hereafter. All the words I sen…"

— Red Cloud

Military1822–1909

#humor

"Faced with the election of a Catholic, our culture is at stake."

— Norman Vincent Peale

Literature1898–1993

#humor

"That’s the trouble with all these bloody lawyers. They build in the loopholes when they’re on the right gov-corp committees so they can exploit them later."

— Emma Newman

Literature1976

#justice