I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Winston Churchill. (1939)
The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia. Otto von Bismarck
The policy of Russia is changeless. Its methods, its tactics, its manoeuvres may change, but the polar star of its policy, world domination, is a fixed star. Karl Marx
Everybody has always underrated the Russians. They keep their own secrets alike from foe and friends. Winston Churchill.
We Russians have assigned ourselves no other task in life but the cultivation of our own personalities, and when we’re barely past childhood, we set to work to cultivate them, those unfortunate personalities. Ivan Turgenev
The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years. Stendhal
The difference between our decadence and the Russians’ is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic. James Thurber
The best thing we can do if we want the Russians to let us be Americans is to let the Russians be Russian. George F Kennan
In Russia all tyrants believe poets to be their worst enemies. Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Russia, Russia – unwashed, backward, appealing Russia, so ashamed of your own backwardness, so orientally determined to conceal it from us by clever deceit. George F Kennan