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We really can't tell the difference between people who might seek power for some greater good and people who seek power just to aggrandize themselves. For example, all revolutionaries say that they want to uplift the downtrodden.

There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.

Few revolutions succeed, and when they do, you often discover they did not gain what you hoped for, and you condemn yourself to perpetual fear, as the parties you defeated may always regain power and work for your ruin.

I am an enemy to revolutions. I abhor, both from temper and from the clearest judgment I am able to form, all violent convulsions in the affairs of men.

They say I'm a revolutionary, but they're all wrong.

Everybody has a different definition of the good side.

A lot of times people look at the negative side of what they feel they can't do. I always look on the positive side of what I can do.

Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then they can pick it up.

In almost any country, probably in Russia in particular, it's fashionable to criticise people in power. If you come out in support of someone like me, you're going to be accused of trying to ingratiate yourself.

I'm a positive person, and I try to look at the good side of everything.