people-from-armenia

"Armenians have lost the instinct for self-preservation, especially those who pursue a pro-Turkish policy in Armenia. I'm just in shock. The Armenians seem to want to check again whether the Turks will massacre them or not. Armenia wants to start negotiations with Ankara, with the presence of preconditions. Turkey has not given up and will not give up on them."

"I am convinced that sooner or later the Armenian-Turkish relations will be normalized since closed borders between States is a non-sense in the 21st century, and rulers can find themselves in an unenviable position if they fail to keep up with the global developments. Political authorities should lead the way and not lag behind."

"We live in a quickly changing world, therefore we must foretell developments, and reforms should respond to these changes."

"Corruption is the most dangerous public disease haunting the humanity, which diagnoses the public state of heath. The deeper is the corruption and corruption activities the sicker is the society and it needs a treatment."

"In paying homage to the martyrs of Metz Yeghern, we understand that we must take steps forward, come together for the sake of our national dreams and goals. We must build a powerful and democratic State by doing everything possible for the future day of our country and people."

"With globalization mounting, the rules teaching us to live globally other than nationally are increasingly becoming meaningful."

"We cannot develop unless we enjoy both internal and external freedom: even the freedom of thinking about freedom."

"The higher the intellectual potential of people, the broader their tendency to self-organization, the more of its functions will be delegated by the government to other communities. Quite true is also the argument that the more responsibility and competence the government delegates to the society, the more is realized its ability to self-organization."

"As a result of transformation of power, functions of enforcement will slowly turn into new, networked systems of governance in the following directions: upward to the global level; downward to the communal level; and frontward to the professional level."

"Ashot is a born trainer."

"Coaching secrets? I don’t think I got any. The main "secret" – love for chess."

"When he is inspired, he is capable of producing magic."

"After having been present at his amusing lessons just once, I will always feel envious of his students."

"I could keep talking about Ashot as chess player, composer, theoretician, or a trainer; however I would rather write about him as a person. If I were asked, which of my close friends is the most honest and kind, I would not hesitate to name Ashot."

"Learn from each one of your defeats; your losses must be as close to you as your victories."

"When I am trying to understand the method of winning in the endgame with two bishops against the knight, chess is a science, when I admire a beautiful combination or study, then chess is art, and when I am complicating position in the approaching time trouble of my opponent, then chess is sport."

"Chess is not Mathematics, where ten is always more than one; in chess the King with a pawn can beat opponent's King with all pieces if they are placed badly."

"Even Ashot's mistakes contain elements of creativity."

"The center of the chessboard is a magnet, which pulls to itself all the pieces. Therefore the most beautiful and amazing moves, for me, are those with which a piece, counteracting the gravitational force of the center, suddenly fly to the edge of the board."

"Let politicians deal with politics. I will put effort into enhancing the dialogue between the Turkish and Armenian peoples."

"The loss of historical memory is restored in the very place where one has lost it."

"Today we must secure not a clash between civilizations, but a reconciliation and bringing together of the values of Islam and Christianity."

"The greatest guarantee for the preservation of a person’s identity is language and faith, and all Armenians must carry these two values."

"Hrant Dink has sacrificed his life and become a target for the sake of justice, truth and tolerance."

"I want to set up a warm and fruitful dialogue. I see that there is no trust between upper level politicians of Turkey and Armenia, but there is trust between the people. People of both countries come together frequently anyways."

"The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople can become a spiritual and cultural bridge among Yerevan, Ankara and the Armenian Diaspora."

"The Armenian Church should save nothing on Armenian upbringing and spiritual integrity of the young generation."

"I propose to create an heroic, monumental style of composition simple enough to inspire all people, completely free from fads, artificial mannerisms and false sophistications, direct, forceful, sincere, always original but never unnatural. Music must be freed from decadence and stagnation. There has been too much emphasis on small things while the great truths have been overlooked. The superficial must be dispensed with. Music must become virile to express big things. It is not my purpose to supply a few pseudo intellectual musicians and critics with more food for brilliant argumentation, but rather to inspire all mankind with new heroism and spiritual nobility. This may appear to be sentimental and impossible to some, but it must be remembered that Palestrina, Handel, and Beethoven would not consider it either sentimental or impossible. In fact, the worthiest creative art has been motivated consciously or unconsciously by the desire for the regeneration of mankind."

"My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing. To attempt what old Chinese painters called 'spirit resonance' in melody and sound."

"We must constantly encourage Western journalists to write precisely the opposite of our real intentions and anyone who writes or speaks about our real intentions accurately or impartially in the Western sense of these words must quickly be dismissed and ridiculed as someone of the Right or a fascist, someone who wants to bring back McCarthyism."

"The greater the emotional intensity, the greater the simplicity."

"We are in a very dangerous period. We are in danger of destroying ourselves, and I have a great fear about this…The older generation is ruling ruthlessly. I feel that this is a terrible threat to our civilization. It's the greed of huge companies and huge organizations which control life in a kind of a brutal way…It's gotten worse and worse, somehow, because physical science has given us more and more terrible deadly weapons, and the human spirit has been destroyed in so many cases, so what's the use of having the most powerful country in the world if we have killed the soul. It's of no use."

"Old intelligence hands still remember this good-natured and wise man."

"I think, that it is our common duty from now on to stop Chinese penetration of the international Communist movement and in relation to Western powers to show China as the main present and future troublemaker."

"The Cheka and each of its organizational descendants had a 'Disinformation Desk' until reorganization of the KGB in 1959 produced a full-fledged Disinformation Department known as Department D of the First Chief Directorate. The first director was General Ivan Ivanovich Agayants, a tall aloof Armenian with grizzled hair and a thin gray mustache. Ascetic and solemn, Agayants combined personal puritanism with a penchant for professional ruthlessness. He gathered a staff of some fifty officers at the Centre and stationed another fifteen to twenty at the KGB's Karlshorst Residency in East Berlin. Additionally, he received authorization to engage scientists, technical specialists, and military officers as consultants whenever needed."

"We cannot, after all, ignore the fact that the cold war is being fostered from the U.S. No one will deny that American bases around our country are not being reduced; in fact they are being strengthened. All of this is bound to cause suspicion, and it is bound to cause the Soviet leaders to be cautious and vigilant."

"There are no U.S. flyers in our country. The bodies were handed over to the Americans. We have no other bodies of flyers or living flyers in the Soviet Union. If we had, why should we try to hide them?"

"All peoples enjoy freedom, and freedom for the development of their culture... There is no Jewish problem in the Soviet Union at all... I have many friends who are Jews."

"Stalin's methods did not help."

"One former member of [the antiparty] group [Molotov] became an ambassador. True, the country [Outer Mongolia] may not be large, but it is an ambassadorship. I do not want to mention names, but you have some former Secretaries of State. I do not know where they are today, but they are not ambassadors. A second member of the group [Kaganovich] is now head of the state asbestos trust. Is that punishment, to head up a big monopoly? … It is better to confess to one's errors than to persist in them."

"If Soviet Union were to fire over this zone with nuclear weapons directed at France, or if, conversely, the Americans or the French were to fire over this territory with nuclear weapons towards Russia, the resulting radioactive clouds would be driven into this territory by the west winds from the one side, and the east winds from the other, and the Soviet Union could certainly not request the winds to keep to a specific path."

"While Zinoviev is in the majority he is for iron discipline.... When he is in the minority... he is against it."

"We think we have got freedom of the press. When one millionaire has ten newspapers and ten million people have no newspapers—that is not freedom of the press."

"Ordinary people abroad take a better attitude toward men who come as guests with their wives. And if they are accompanied by other members of their family, that disposes people even more favorably toward them. Therefore, I would propose that Khrushchev take Nina Petrovna with him and also include in the delegation other members of his family. This will be well received by ordinary Americans, and that would be better for us."

"We are watching the Germans closely; we are not forgetting what they did to us during the war."

"We are accused of all sorts of terrible things, of us wanting to undermine your market, of dumping and so forth. There was no such talk before, but when you had your recession, there were people who wanted to put the whole blame on the Russians. All these fables of us being such terrible devils are not well founded. We want to trade in earnest and well."

"Like Lenin Comrade Stalin is a leader of a higher type. He is a mountain eagle, without fear in the fight, who boldly leads the bolshevik party on unexplored roads toward the total victory of Communism."

"The principle of collective leadership is elementary for a proletarian party and for a party of the Lenin type. Nevertheless, we must emphasize this old truth, because for about 20 years we have had practically no collective leadership; there flourished the cult of the individual which was condemned first by Marx and then by Lenin. And this, of course, could not but reflect negatively on the position of the party and its work."

"If Stalin could only see us now, with the American Ambassador here, he'd turn in his grave."

"We have won on the Arlov, Kursk, Belgorod, and Kharkov grounds. We won because the country was being defended not only by the army but by the entire Soviet people. The Socialist economy, Soviet political structure, and Marxist-Leninist ideology proved their unarguable excellence against the Fascist economy, Fascist political structure, and Fascist ideology of Germany."