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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

"The Soviet Union, which has complained recently about alleged anti-Soviet
themes in American advertising, lodged an official protest this week against
the Ford Motor Company's new campaign: `Hey you stinking fat Russian, get
off my Ford Escort.'"
-- Dennis Miller, Saturday Night Live
There is something you must understand about the Soviet system.  They have the
ability to concentrate all their efforts on a given design, and develop all
components simulateously, but sometimes without proper testing.  Then they end
up with a technological disaster like the Tu-144.  In a technology race at
the time, that aircraft was two months ahead of the Concorde.  Four Tu-144s
were built; two have crashed, and two are in museums.  The Concorde has been
flying safely for over 10 years.
-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
   "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100
"I have a friend who just got back from the Soviet Union, and told me the people
there are hungry for information about the West.  He was asked about many
things, but I will give you two examples that are very revealing about life in
the Soviet Union.  The first question he was asked was if we had exploding
television sets.  You see, they have a problem with the picture tubes on color
television sets, and many are exploding.  They assumed we must be having
problems with them too.  The other question he was asked often was why the
CIA had killed Samantha Smith, the little girl who visited the Soviet Union a
few years ago; their propaganda is very effective.
-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
   "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100
"...I could accept this openness, glasnost, perestroika, or whatever you want
to call it if they did these things: abolish the one party system; open the
Soviet frontier and allow Soviet people to travel freely; allow the Soviet
people to have real free enterprise; allow Western businessmen to do business
there, and permit freedom of speech and of the press.  But so far, the whole
country is like a concentration camp.  The barbed wire on the fence around
the Soviet Union is to keep people inside, in the dark.  This openness that
you are seeing, all these changes, are cosmetic and they have been designed
to impress shortsighted, naive, sometimes stupid Western leaders.  These
leaders gush over Gorbachev, hoping to do business with the Soviet Union or
appease it.  He will say: "Yes, we can do business!"  This while his
military machine in Afghanistan has killed over a million people out of a
population of 17 million.  Can you imagine that?
-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
   "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110
"Although Poles suffer official censorship, a pervasive secret
police and laws similar to those in the USSR, there are
thousands of underground publications, a legal independent
Church, private agriculture, and the East bloc's first and only
independent trade union federation, NSZZ Solidarnosc, which is
an affiliate of both the International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labor.  There is
literally a world of difference between Poland - even in its
present state of collapse - and Soviet society at the peak of
its "glasnost."  This difference has been maintained at great
cost by the Poles since 1944.
-- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a
   gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network)
   to Poland
In 1967, the Soviet Government minted a beautiful silver ruble with Lenin
in a very familiar pose -- arms raised above him, leading the country to
revolution.  But, it was clear to everybody, that if you looked at it from
behind, it was clear that Lenin was pointing to 11:00, when the Vodka
shops opened, and was actually saying, "Comrades, forward to the Vodka shops.

It became fashionable, when one wanted to have a drink, to take out the
ruble and say, "Oh my goodness, Comrades, Lenin tells me we should go.
Q:        What does friendship among Soviet nationalities mean?
A:        It means that the Armenians take the Russians by the hand; the
        Russians take the Ukrainians by the hand; the Ukranians take
        the Uzbeks by the hand; and they all go and beat up the Jews.
Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh
autonomous region, rioted over much needed spelling reform in the Soviet Union.
                -- P.J. O'Rourke
Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations

        Sign on a cabin door of a Soviet Black Sea cruise liner:
                Helpsavering apparata in emergings behold many whistles!
                Associate the stringing apparata about the bosums and meet
                behind, flee then to the indifferent lifesaveringshippen
                obedicing the instructs of the vessel.

        On the door in a Belgrade hotel:
                Let us know about any unficiency as well as leaking on
                the service. Our utmost will improve it.

                -- Colin Bowles
Seems that a pollster was taking a worldwide opinion poll.
Her question was, "Excuse me; what's your opinion on the meat shortage?"

In Texas, the answer was "What's a shortage?"
In Poland, the answer was "What's meat?"
In the Soviet Union, the answer was "What's an opinion?"
In New York City, the answer was "What's excuse me?"
After 35 years, I have finished a comprehensive study of European
comparative law.  In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited,
except that which is permitted.  In France, under the law, everything
is permitted, except that which is prohibited.  In the Soviet Union,
under the law, everything is prohibited, including that which is
permitted.  And in Italy, under the law, everything is permitted,
especially that which is prohibited.
                -- Newton Minow,
                Speech to the Association of American Law Schools, 1985
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
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