Nikita Khrushchev Quotes & Sayings

If Adenauer were here with us in the sauna, we could see for ourselves that Germany is and will remain divided but also that Germany never will rise again. — Nikita Khrushchev

All the sparrows on the rooftops are crying about the fact that the most imperialist nation that is supporting the colonial regime in the colonies is the United States of America. — Nikita Khrushchev

Even now we feel that Stalin was devoted to Communism, he was a Marxist, this cannot and should not be denied. — Nikita Khrushchev

Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you don't think. Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge where there is no river. — Nikita Khrushchev

The thought sometimes
the unpleasant thought sometimes creeps up on me here as to whether perhaps Khrushchev was not invited here to enable you to sort of rub him in your sauce and to show the might and the strength of the United States so as to make him sort of ... so as to make him shaky at the knees. If that is so, then if I came
if it took me about 12 hours to get here, I guess it'll just
it'll take no more than about 10½ hours to fly back. — Nikita Khrushchev

The construction of a communist society would be completed 'in the main' by 1980 — Nikita Khrushchev

Call it what you will, incentives are what get people to work harder. — Nikita Khrushchev

The Americans have surrounded our country with military bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons, and now they will learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointed at you; we'd be doing nothing more than giving them a little of their own medicine. — Nikita Khrushchev

We and you ought not to pull on the ends of a rope which you have tied the knots of war. Because the more the two of us pull, the tighter the knot will be tied. And then it will be necessary to cut that knot, and what that would mean is not for me to explain to you. I have participated in two wars and know that war ends when it has rolled through cities and villages, everywhere sowing death and destruction. For such is the logic of war. If people do not display wisdom, they will clash like blind moles and then mutual annihilation will commence. — Nikita Khrushchev

If you live among dogs, keep a stick. After all, this is what a hound has teeth for-to bite when he feels like it! — Nikita Khrushchev

You must never believe all these things which the scientists say because they always want more than they can get-they are never satisfied. — Nikita Khrushchev

The United States will eventually fly the Communist red flag ... The American people will hoist it themselves. — Nikita Khrushchev

The purpose of the United Nations should be to protect the essential sovereignty of nations, large and small. — Nikita Khrushchev

I once said, 'We will bury you,' and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you. — Nikita Khrushchev

If we were to promise people nothing better than only revolution, they would scratch their heads and say: 'Is it not better to have good goulash?' — Nikita Khrushchev

When I was young, I worked for a capitalist twelve hours a day and I was always tired. Now I work for myself twenty hours a day and I never get tired — Nikita Khrushchev

Everyone can err, but Stalin considered that he never erred, that he was always right. He never acknowledged to anyone that he made any mistake, large or small, despite the fact that he made not a few mistakes in the matter of theory and in his practical activity. — Nikita Khrushchev

The living will envy the dead. — Nikita Khrushchev

My arms are up to the elbows in blood. That is the most terrible thing that lies in my soul. — Nikita Khrushchev

When you are skinning your customers, you should leave some skin on to heal, so that you can skin them again. — Nikita Khrushchev

Of all cities in the United States I have seen, San Francisco is the most beautiful. — Nikita Khrushchev

Mr. President, call the toady of American imperialism to order. — Nikita Khrushchev

Historians are dangerous and capable of turning everything upside down. They have to be watched. — Nikita Khrushchev

The survivors (of a nuclear war) would envy the dead. — Nikita Khrushchev

I want to talk to these people because they stay in power and you change all the time. — Nikita Khrushchev

America has been in existence for 150 years and this is the level she has reached. We have existed not quite 42 years and in another seven years we will be on the same level as America. When we catch you up, in passing you by, we will wave to you. — Nikita Khrushchev

You do not know, you cannot know, the difficulty of the life of a politician. It means every minute of the day or night, every ounce of your energy. There is no rest, no relaxation. Enjoyment? A politician does not know the meaning of the word. — Nikita Khrushchev

You stuck listening devices all over the dacha
even in the bathroom. You spend the people's money to eavesdrop on my farts. — Nikita Khrushchev

The two most powerful nations of the world had been squared off against each other, each with its finger on the button. You'd have thought that war was inevitable. But both sides showed that if the desire to avoid war is strong enough, even the most pressing dispute can be solved by compromise. And a compromise over Cuba was indeed found. — Nikita Khrushchev

Gagarin flew into space, but didn't see any god there. — Nikita Khrushchev

Without Spam, we wouldn't have been able to feed our army. — Nikita Khrushchev

Do you think when two representatives holding diametrically opposing views get together and shake hands, the contradictions between our systems will simply melt away? What kind of a daydream is that? — Nikita Khrushchev

The dictatorship of the proletariat and the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party are indispensable conditions for the triumph of the Socialist revolution and the building of Socialism. — Nikita Khrushchev

Once you pledge, don't hedge. — Nikita Khrushchev

But life is a great school. It thrashes and bangs and teaches you. — Nikita Khrushchev

What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying. — Nikita Khrushchev

They talk about who won and who lost. Human reason won. Mankind won. — Nikita Khrushchev

When all the world is socialist, Switzerland will have to remain capitalist, so that it can tell us the price of everything. — Nikita Khrushchev

They pay little attention to what we say and prefer to read tea leaves. — Nikita Khrushchev

If one cannot catch a bird of paradise, better take a wet hen. — Nikita Khrushchev

Just imagine: I, a Premier, a Soviet representative, when I came here to this city, I was given a plan - a program of what I was to be shown and whom I was to meet here. But just now, I was told that I could not go to Disneyland. I asked, 'Why not?' What is it, do you have rocket-launching pads there? I do not know — Nikita Khrushchev

"Freedom" in capitalist countries exists only for those who possess money and who consequently hold power. — Nikita Khrushchev

You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you'll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you'll fall like overripe fruit into our hands. — Nikita Khrushchev

Whether you like it or not. history is on our side. We will bury you! — Nikita Khrushchev

There are still some people who think that we have Stalin to thank for all our progress, who quake before Stalin's dirty under-draws, who stand at attention and salute them. — Nikita Khrushchev

I am not afraid of the devil, and you are just a man. — Nikita Khrushchev

He was a crystal of morality among our scientists. — Nikita Khrushchev

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. — Nikita Khrushchev

What innocence, may I ask, is being played here when it is known that this virtuous damsel has already got a dozen illegitimate children? — Nikita Khrushchev

Revolutions are not made for export. — Nikita Khrushchev

The one who loses his head no longer cares about his hair. — Nikita Khrushchev

I don't like the life here in New York. There is no greenery. It would make a stone sick. — Nikita Khrushchev

The press is our chief ideological weapon. — Nikita Khrushchev

The United States now sleeps under a Soviet moon — Nikita Khrushchev

Let there be more corn and more meat and let there be no hydrogen bombs at all. — Nikita Khrushchev

If you live among wolves you have to act like a wolf. — Nikita Khrushchev

Economics is a subject that does not greatly respect one's wishes. — Nikita Khrushchev

Bombs do not choose. They will hit everything. — Nikita Khrushchev

The more bombers, the less room for doves of peace. — Nikita Khrushchev

President Roosevelt proved that a President could serve for life. Truman proved that anyone could be elected. Eisenhower proved that your country can be run without a President. — Nikita Khrushchev

In the future, if nuclear weapons are unleashed there will be no front and no rear. — Nikita Khrushchev

Any fool can start a war, and once he's done so, even the wisest of men are helpless to stop it - especially if it's a nuclear war. — Nikita Khrushchev

If you start throwing hedgehogs under me, I shall throw a couple of porcupines under you. — Nikita Khrushchev

Don't you have a machine that puts food into the mouth and pushes it down? — Nikita Khrushchev

I don't understand the music but I certainly understand the girl singer! — Nikita Khrushchev

If you feed the people just with revolutionary slogans they will listen today, they will listen tomorrow, they will listen the day after tomorrow, but on the fourth day they will say, "To hell with you." — Nikita Khrushchev

The John Birch Society is Communism's greatest ally. With its help we will divide and confuse the American people until they have lost faith in their Government, their nation has ceased to be a major world power, and their country is ripe for revolution. — Nikita Khrushchev

When it comes to combating imperialism we are all Stalinists. — Nikita Khrushchev

No one is born a Communist ... in the Soviet Union farmers keep on looking in the barn for their horses even after they have given them to the collective. — Nikita Khrushchev

I worked at a factory owned by Germans, at coal pits owned by Frenchmen, and at a chemical plant owned by Belgians. There I discovered something about capitalists. They are all alike, whatever the nationality. All they wanted from me was the most work for the least money that kept me alive. So I became a communist. — Nikita Khrushchev

I happened to read recently a remark by the American nuclear physicist W. Davidson, who noted that the explosion of one hydrogen bomb releases a greater amount of energy than all the explosions set off by all countries in all wars known in the entire history of mankind. And he, apparently, is right. — Nikita Khrushchev

Berlin is the testicles of the West, every time I want the West to scream, I squeeze on Berlin. — Nikita Khrushchev

The main difference for the history of the world if I had been shot rather than Kennedy is that Onassis probably wouldn't have married Mrs Khrushchev. — Nikita Khrushchev

One of the major principles is that Soviet literature must be inseverably linked with the policy of the Communist party — Nikita Khrushchev

In a fight you don't stop to choose your cudgels. — Nikita Khrushchev

We say the name of God, but that is only habit. — Nikita Khrushchev

He who cannot eat horsemeat need not do so. Let him eat pork. But he who cannot eat pork, let him eat horsemeat. It's simply a question of taste. — Nikita Khrushchev

The USA and USSR will only agree when shrimps learn to fly. — Nikita Khrushchev

No matter how humble a man's beginnings, he achieves the stature of the office to which he is elected. — Nikita Khrushchev

Support by United States rulers is rather in the nature of the support that the rope gives to a hanged man. — Nikita Khrushchev

We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within. — Nikita Khrushchev

Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all — Nikita Khrushchev

Historians are dangerous people. They are capable of upsetting everything. — Nikita Khrushchev

They say that the Soviet delegates smile. That smile is genuine. It is not artificial. We wish to live in peace, tranquility. But if anyone believes that our smiles involve abandonment of the teaching of Marx, Engels and Lenin he deceives himself poorly. Those who wait for that must wait until a shrimp learns to whistle. — Nikita Khrushchev

I know what I say at times is not very diplomatic. — Nikita Khrushchev