Mikhail Gorbachev — "The past is a good teacher, but a bad master."
The past is a good teacher, but a bad master.
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
"I am still a communist. But I am a different kind of communist."
"I am an optimist, but I am also a pragmatist."
"I am a confirmed atheist and I believe that to try to introduce God into a discussion about the Soviet Union is a mistake."
"The alternative to perestroika is stagnation and decline. We have no other choice."
"I am a man of the people. I come from the people."
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.