Mikhail Gorbachev — "History punishes those who come too late or too early. Those who don't know how …"
History punishes those who come too late or too early. Those who don't know how to use the opportunities that history provides.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Mikhail Gorbachev
"We need to build bridges, not walls."
"I'm not a saint, and I'm not a devil. I'm just a man."
"I am not afraid of change. I embrace it."
"The Soviet Union is not an empire. It is a union of free peoples."
"The United States has taken the role of a self-appointed sheriff in world affairs."
About Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022)
Final General Secretary of the Soviet Union whose glasnost and perestroika reforms led to the USSR's dissolution and the end of the Cold War. Closely associated with Boris Yeltsin (his domestic rival and successor as Russian leader) and Ronald Reagan (Cold War counterpart and arms-control partner). For an intellectual contrast, see Vladimir Putin, Russian president (2000-2008, 2012-) — Putin has publicly called the Soviet collapse 'the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century' — Gorbachev's signature achievement. Putin's two-decade political project has been organized around reversing Gorbachev's liberalization.