Atheists

"Lukashenko truly believes the world does not notice his participation in crimes against Ukraine. That is why he cynically wishes us a ‘peaceful sky’ while allowing deadly rockets to hit us."

"Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus has the dubious distinction of being Europe's last remaining dictator. He was popularly elected in 1994 and immediately began consolidating his power and eliminating any shred of democracy or free speech. As he himself once said, "I look at our old people and the middle-aged generation who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union, and they can see that Lukashenko is a good chap.""

"“The Jews managed to force the world to remember the Holocaust,” Lukashenko declared. “The entire world grovels before them and gives in to them. They are afraid to say a single word out of place.” By contrast, he continued, “[W]e are tolerant and likable. We left things alone until it got to the point where others started attacking us and the memory of our efforts.”"

"I cannot write in . Firstly, I have a cold apartment. I will die there with my sick lungs soon. Because the presidential decree introduced the maximum temperature in Minsk... He [Lukashenka] does not need Bykau. He has a close-knit and strong cohort of own writers, who write his biographies. They write about him, describe his life. And it's enough for Lukashenka. He does not perceive anything else. The things that Lukashenko is doing are aimed at the complete elimination of the sovereignty of Belarus. He completely enslaves the people."

"Vladimir Putin has benefitted throughout his time as Russian president by the constant references in Russian and foreign media to Alyaksandr Lukashenka as “the last dictator in Europe,” an epithet which distracts attention from the fact that Putin is far more repressive than the Belarusian dictator. But now there is new evidence that Putin is providing his fellow dictator with the kind of assistance that allows Lukashenka to repress his own people and remain in power. The Kremlin leader has put the name of more than 4700 Belarusians on Russia’s wanted list (mediazonaby.com/article/2025/04/09/wanted_again)."

"I have found yet another friend here. And with such a friend we will together form a team, like a soccer team. This will be a fighting team."

"The pro-imperial dictatorship of Lukashenka keeps the direction of unification with Russia, destroying the national culture and the Belarusian language."

"I wish luck to you and your nation that loves you, as the election results we can see testify."

"To answer this question directly: I don't have to provide security for Prigozhin. First of all. Secondly, we never talked about it that way."

"At five o'clock in the evening he called me and says: 'Alexander Grigorievich, I accept all your conditions. But what should I do? If we stop, they'll start whacking us." I said, "They won't. I guarantee you. I'll take care of that." We were in contact with the Russian leadership, the FSB was mainly dealing with this issue, with Bortnikov. I simply urged them not to do it. Bortnikov is a smart man. He said: "Alexander Grigorievich, well, I'm not a fool, I understand what can happen," the President said. He said: "Alexander Grigorievich, I'm not a fool, I realise what can happen. If they stop somewhere, the column will tighten... It will pile up... So that there will be no desire and temptation to attack it here. We promised: it won't happen. I told Prigozhin: "This is a guarantee." "What next?" - "Up to the point that I will take you to Belarus and guarantee you complete safety. And your guys, who have advanced here in this column." - "Yes, I believe you. I believe you." - "Good, we'll act in that direction.""

"From Oct. 6, all price increases are forbidden. Forbidden! From today. Not from tomorrow, from today. So that prices aren't driven up in the next 24 hours."

"Putin and I once said in Saint Petersburg that we will refit Belarusian Sukhoi aircraft among other things so that they could carry nuclear weapons. Do you think we talk nonsense? Everything is ready!"

"We'll massacre all the scum that you [the West] have been financing. Oh, you're upset we've destroyed all your structures! Your NGOs, whatever they are, that you've been paying for."

"Minsk will become the capital of the United States in two years."

"I view the collapse of the Soviet Union as a disaster that entailed and still brings about negative consequences around the world. We got nothing good from this break-up."

"I shan't be holding on to this job for life. As soon as people decline my services, I'll put my briefcase under my arm and I'll be off."

"They say that even bad publicity is good publicity."

"We have rigged the latest election. 93.5 per cent have voted for Lukashenko. But they say it is not a European outcome. We have made it 86 per cent."

"My position and the state will never allow me to become a dictator, but an authoritarian style of rule is characteristic of me, and I have always admitted it. You need to control the country, and the main thing is not to ruin people's lives."

"People who speak Belarusian can not do anything except talk on it, because it is impossible to express anything great in Belarusian. The Belarusian language is a poor language. There are only two great languages in the world. Russian and English."

"I don't really understand what a dictator is."

"As for those who are screaming about dictatorship...when I hear that come up I think that it is better to be a dictator - than to be gay."

"If someone is a lesbian, it's man's fault."

"Aggression has been committed, and the country's leadership, not only Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed. And how was he killed? Well, if they had shot him in a battle, it's one thing, but they humiliated and tormented him, they shot at him, they violated him when he was wounded, they twisted his neck and arms, and then they tortured him to death. It's worse than the Nazis once did. Besides, the United States, Italy, France and Germany have up to $150 billion of Libyan money now. They are very interested to grab this wealth. Everything will be even worse in Libya, because it has colossal deposits of resources, and everyone has rushed there to grab those riches."

"I look at Obama, a young man, a good-looking person. That is my first impression, I feel sorry for him. He looks 100% like Lukashenko, when I came to power after the downfall of the Soviet Union. The store shelves were empty, a severe financial crisis."

"The arrival of the Nazi sniper set us a new task. We had to find him, study habits and methods, and patiently await the moment for one, and only one, well-aimed shot."

"The duel went on for three days, but it ended in our victory in a matter of seconds. The German was well prepared for it. He had liquidated two Soviet snipers before that. But, with the help of my comrades-in-arms, also snipers whose positions were next to mine, I managed to slay him. I did not know what kind of sniper had been brought to Stalingrad, but when we pulled him out of his shelter we discovered that he was the chief of the school for snipers based in Berlin. On the whole I liquidated 242 Nazis in Stalingrad. My friends and pupils also eliminated many of them. I had trained 30 snipers who killed 1126 Nazis during the war."

"There was no ground for us beyond [the] Volga."

"Here, then, is what I wanted to tell you of my architecture. I created it with courage and idealism, but also with an awareness of the fact that what is important is life, friends and attempting to make this unjust world a better place in which to live."

"Architecture was my way of expressing my ideals: to be simple, to create a world equal to everyone, to look at people with optimism, that everyone has a gift. I don’t want anything but general happiness. Why is that bad?"

"We hated Bauhaus. It was a bad time in architecture. They just didn’t have any talent. All they had were rules. Even for knives and forks they created rules. Picasso would never have accepted rules. The house is like a machine? No! The mechanical is ugly. The rule is the worst thing. You just want to break it."

"Life is very fleeting. It’s important to be gentle and optimistic. We look behind and think what we’ve done in this life has been good. It was simple; it was modest. Everyone creates their own story and moves on. That’s it. I don’t feel particularly important. What we create is not important. We’re very insignificant."

"When people ask me if I take pleasure in the idea of someone looking at my buildings in the future, I tell them that this person will vanish, too. Everything has a beginning and an end. You. Me. Architecture. We must try to do the best we can, but must remain modest. Nothing lasts for very long."

"Brasilia was a wonderful time [...] I designed a wooden cabin for us to live in - me, engineers, visiting friends and JK himself. We called it Catetinho [a national monument today]. JK flew out to join us in the savannah as we built his city. We went to the same dances and bars as the workers. This was a liberating time. It seemed as if a new society was being born, with all the traditional barriers cast aside. It didn't work. Now, Brasilia is too big. The developers, the capitalists are there, dividing society and spoiling the city. Brasilia should stop."

"Architecture for me has always begun with drawing. When I was very little my mother said I used to draw in the air with my fingers. I needed a pencil. Once I could hold one, I have drawn every day since. The buildings do appear on paper the way you say, but they are not the result of gratuitous brushstrokes. The pencil is guided by so many thoughts stored away in my mental library. But, when I have looked at the site for a building, considered its budget and thought of how it might be built, and what it might be, the drawings come very quickly. I pick up my pen. It flows. A building appears. There it is. There is nothing more to say."

"My ambition has always been to reduce a building’s support to a minimum. The more we diminish supporting structures, the more audacious and important the architecture is. That has been my life’s work."

"I had some good opportunities. I was lucky to have had the chance to do things differently. Architecture is about surprise."

"It is not the right angle that attracts me, nor the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curve — the curve that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the body of the beloved woman."

"I was attracted by the curve — the liberated, sensual curve suggested by the possibilities of new technology yet so often recalled in venerable old baroque churches."

"I deliberately disregarded the right angle and rationalist architecture designed with ruler and square to boldly enter the world of curves and straight lines offered by reinforced concrete.… This deliberate protest arose from the environment in which I lived, with its white beaches, its huge mountains, its old baroque churches, and the beautiful suntanned women."

"My work is not about "form follows function," but "form follows beauty" or, even better, "form follows feminine.""

"I have always accepted and respected all other schools of architecture, from the chill and elemental structures of Mies van der Rohe to the imagination and delirium of Gaudi. I must design what pleases me in a way that is naturally linked to my roots and the country of my origin."

"First were the thick stone walls, the arches, then the domes and vaults — of the architect, searching out for wider spaces. Now it is concrete-reinforced that gives our imagination flight with its soaring spans and uncommon cantilevers. Concrete, to which architecture is integrated, through which it is able to discard the foregone conclusions of rationalism, with its monotony and repetitious solutions. A concern for beauty, a zest for fantasy, and an ever-present element of surprise bear witness that today's architecture is not a minor craft bound to straight-edge rules, but an architecture imbued with technology: light, creative and unfettered, seeking out its architectural scene."

"Humanity needs dreams to endure misery, even if just for an instant.A humanidade precisa de sonhos para suportar a miséria, nem que seja por um instante."

"It's funny, the power of beauty, to make us forget such injustice. É estranho o poder da beleza, que nos faz esquecer tanta injustiça."

"Gordon Brown thinks you should solve climate change by changing your lightbulbs. We think you should solve climate change by changing your Government."

"Keir Starmer is abandoning so many pledges so quickly, it's sending a real message to people on the left – that they are no longer the party for things like improving child benefit policies, things like controlling rents. It will only be Green MPs arguing for these things in the next parliament, standing up for things like repealing the horrendous Public Order Act, which Labour wouldn't vote against. That does make our job easier in terms of getting elected. But it makes our job harder if we haven't got a decent government – it's concerning on a good-of-the-country level."

"Boris Johnson has real contempt for Londoners. He hates that we celebrate each other's heritage; he hates that we try to pass on a healthy environment to our children; he hates that we look after our most vulnerable neighbours; and most of all he hates that we all expect to share in our city's financial success."

"We spend our lives on the run: we get up by the clock, eat and sleep by the clock, get up again, go to work - and then we retire. And what do they give us? A fucking clock."

"I've stopped smoking... I think the cost was a lot of it, and not being able to breathe. I first gave up smoking when I was eight."