Patriot Quotes

“We must do what they fear--tell the truth, spread the truth. This is the most power weapon against this regime of liars, thieves, and hypocrites. Everyone has this weapon. So make use of it.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“But I will not give up either my ideas or my homeland. My convictions are not exotic, sectarian, or radical. On the contrary, everything I believe in is based on science and historical experience. Those in power should change. The best way to elect leaders is through honest and free elections. Everyone needs a fair legal system. Corruption destroys the state. There should be no censorship. The future lies in these principles.”
― Alexey Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“The hero of one of my favite books, Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy, says, "Yes, the only suitable place for an honest man in Russia at the present time is prison.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“I love the Russian language. I love the melancholic landscapes, when you look out of the window and want to cry; it’s just wonderful. I feel great, because all of this is close to me. I love our sad songs. I love our literature and cinema. It’s always about anguish, contemplation, suffering, melancholy, and self-reflection.”
― Alexey Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“We must do what they fear -- tell the truth, spread the truth. This is the most powerful weapon against this regime of liars, thieves and hypocrites. Everyone has this weapon. So make use of it.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“What are AJkraine's borders with Russia? The same as Russia's with Ukraine, which we internationally recognized and defined in 1991. There's nothing to discuss here. Almost all borders in the world are more or less accidental and cause someone discontent. But in the twenty-first century, we can't start ward just to redraw them. Otherwise, the world will sink into chaos.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“When corruption is the very foundation of a regime, those who battle it are extremists.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“Having spent my first year in prison, I want to tell everyone exactly the same thing I shouted to those who gathered outside the court when the guards were taking me off to the police truck. Don’t be afraid of anything. This is our country and it’s the only one we have. The only thing we should fear is that we will surrender our homeland to be plundered by a gang of liars, thieves, and hypocrites. That we will surrender without a fight, voluntarily, our own future and the future of our children. Huge thanks to all of you for your support. I can feel it. I’d just like to add: This year has gone by incredibly quickly. It seems only yesterday I was boarding the plane to Moscow, and now I’ve already completed a year in prison. It’s true what they say in science books: time on earth and in space passes at different speeds. I love you all. Hugs to everyone.”
― Alexey Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“A serious political leader cannot simply decide to turn his back on a huge number of his fellow citizens because he personally dislikes their views.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“If you were to ask me whether I hate Vladimir Putin, my answer would be, yes, I hate him, but not because he tried to kill me or put my brother in prison. I hate Putin because he has stolen the last twenty years from Russia. These could have been incredible years, the sort of period that we’ve never had in our history. We had no enemies. We had peace on all our borders. The price of oil, gas, and our other natural resources was incredibly high. We earned huge amounts from our exports. Putin could have used these years to turn Russia into a prosperous country. All of us could have lived better. Instead, twenty million people live below the poverty line. Part of the money Putin and his cronies simply stole; part of it was squandered. They did nothing good for our country, and that is their worst crime”
― Alexey Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“Life works in such a way that social progress and a better future can only be achieved if a certain number of people are willing to pay the price for their right to have their own beliefs. The more of them there are, the less everyone has to pay. And the day will come when speaking the truth and advocating for justice will be commonplace and not dangerous in Russia.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“Nineteen years in a maximum-security penal colony. The number of years does not matter. I understand perfectly well that, like many political prisoners, I am serving a life sentence. Where “life” is defined by either the length of my life or the length of the life of this regime. The sentencing figure is not for me. It is for you. You, not I, are being frightened and deprived of the will to resist. You are being forced to surrender your country without a fight to the gang of traitors, thieves, and scoundrels who have seized power. Putin must not achieve his goal. Do not lose the will to resist.”
― Alexey Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“The gist of my political strategy is that I am not afraid of people and am open to dialogue with everyone. I can talk to the right, and they will listen to me. I can talk to the left, and they too will listen. I can also talk to democrats, because I am one myself. A serious political leader cannot simply decide to turn his back on a huge number of his fellow citizens because he personally dislikes their views. That is why we must create a situation where everybody is able to participate on an equal footing in fair and free elections, competing with each other. In any normal, developed political system, I would not be a member of the nationalists’ party. But I consider attempts to discredit the nationalist movement as a whole counterproductive. Without question, those who organize pogroms should be called to account, but people need to be given the opportunity to demonstrate legally and express their opinions, however much you may dislike them.”
― Alexey Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“The politics of an authoritarian country are structured in a very primitive way: you are either for the regime or against it. All other political options have been completely obliterated.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“All schooboys had been to the stores and had noticed the long queues, and knew that the most used word in the Soviet lexicon was "shortage.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“The crucial source of ideological sabotage that subverted me and turned me into a little dissident was music.”
― Alexey Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“achieved what we watched Czechoslovakia, East Germany, China, and South Korea achieve. That is a comparison about which we can only feel sad. This is not some abstract exercise, but thirty years of our lives. And God knows how many more such lost and stolen years lie”
― Alexey Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“inculcate”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“What they inspect most closely are the books. I noticed this long ago, and it is plainly a legacy of the U.S.S.R. Books are a source of instability and dissidence. In a prison it is conceivable that your jacket will not be adequately examined and a mobile phone will be overlooked. You can be sure, however, that every one of your books will be taken away, listed, examined, stamped “Checked for Extremist Content,” and only then given back to you. Such is the power of the written word.”
― Alexey Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“We must do what they fear—tell the truth, spread the truth. This is the most powerful weapon against this regime of liars, thieves, and hypocrites. Everyone has this weapon. So make use of it.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“When corruption is the very foundation of a regime, those who battle it are extremists”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“If you have a criminal conviction, you are barred from running for office.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“The politics of an authoritarian country are structured in a very primitive way: you are either for the regime or against it. All other political options have been completely obliterated.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“I’d like to wake up not in this kennel, but to breakfast with my family, kisses on the cheek from my children, unwrapping gifts and saying “wow, this is exactly what I was hoping for.” But life is constructed such that progress and a better future are achievable only if a certain number of people are prepared to pay for their right to hold beliefs. The more of those people there are, the less each will pay. The day will surely come when speaking the truth and standing up for justice will be something ordinary in Russia and completely free from danger.

Until that day comes, I see my situation not as a heavy burden or a yoke, but simply as the work I need to do.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“I knew from the outset that I would be imprisoned for life — either the rest of my life or until the end of the life of this regime,” Navalny wrote in his diary in March 2022. “I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“Instead, as I have since seen on a less dramatic scale many times, the first official reaction is invariably to lie. There is no practical benefit to the officials doing so; it is simply a rule: In an awkward situation, lie. Play down the damage, deny everything, bluff. It can all be sorted out later, but right now, at the moment of crisis, officials have no option but to lie, because the imagined idiot population is not yet ready for the truth.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“I can't see why feminists don't demand that The Taming of the Shrew be cancelled and expelled from libraries. It's diabolical, even for those times.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“In October 1987 the national channel began airing Vzglyad (Viewpoint), which came to mean everything to me. I don’t think there has been anything else in my life that so greatly influenced”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“In every period, the essence of politics has been that a tin-pot tsar who wants to arrogate to himself the right to personal, unaccountable power needs to intimidate the honest people who are not afraid of him. And they, in turn, need to convince everyone around them that they should not be afraid, that there are, by an order of magnitude, more honest”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir

“And there we were, breaking lances and talking ourselves hoarse about reforms when there was nothing there. Zilch. Yeltsin’s entourage were a bunch of crooks, some of whom called themselves patriotic statesmen while a similar bunch called themselves reformers. The reformers did more thieving but looked more presentable.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir