Peter Thiel Quotes

After 9/11, we realized that all these silly culture wars, and arguing about rock lyrics... who cares? You know, we, for some reason, remembered what our real problems are.

I don't know if anybody wants to mix their politics with their entertainment.

During the cold war, it was easy for the Pentagon to justify its budget, as the Soviets essentially sized our forces for us. We simply counted up their stuff and either bought more of the same or upgraded our technology.

There's a tendency on the part of Americans, all of us, to say, 'Hey, the Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is gone, we don't have to worry about these guys again.' We always have to be worried about them, we always have to be concerned about them, and we have to be well-informed.

Sputnik quickly became one of the three great shocks to hit America - historians say the equal of Pearl Harbor or 9/11.

There is no hope for any nation or group that allows itself to be drawn into the orbit of international communism.

I must confess to the most profound distrust of Russia. I have no belief whatever in her ability to maintain an effective offensive, even if she wanted to.

Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.

When I came to Congress in 1993, the traditional idea that all politics stopped at the water's edge was alive and well. Americans had been unified for the previous four decades against the threat from the former Soviet Union and communism.

To me, freedom of speech and debate are necessary inputs in solving any of our nation's problems, from homelessness and economic inequality to banking, the environment, and national security. Freedom of speech is what Larry Lessig would call a 'root' issue; working on free speech is striking at a root issue.

Believe me, most of the people in Russia are seeing the West as a threat.

During my childhood in the Cold War, my family saw America as a great ally in our common struggle to keep back Soviet communism.

The fact that the 1984 cold war film 'Red Dawn' has been remade is more than just another sign of Hollywood declining into pastiche and repetition. It shows that, in a moment of deep capitalist crisis, the Red Peril is back.

There was obviously never any help from the Russians. I don't even know what the Russians would have done.

The trouble with the First World War, for example, is that people think war was inevitable, but I don't agree. If you look at the Cold War, you could argue that a war was bound to happen between the Soviet Union and its allies and the United States and its allies, but it didn't.

Oh man, there's no shortage of craziness happening on the American landscape right now. I'll turn on the TV every day or check out the newspaper, and there is something to find humor in or something to find absolute fear in. Either way, it makes for good comedy.

I think our society today, the negativity is at the forefront, so you see all the people that have outrage about this or that.

My grandfather was an American Communist, and he married my grandmother, who was a Russian Communist. During the 1950s, the McCarthy era, my family was viciously persecuted.

Mitt Romney said many years ago that he thought Russia was the single biggest geopolitical threat to the United States and their presence in a variety of conflicts of one type or another have borne out much of what Mitt Romney said.

The heads of the K.G.B. were deeply anti-Semitic and saw in Israel and world Jewry 'a danger which is only second to the main enemy, the United States.' The K.G.B. was intent on destabilizing Israel, totally disproportionate to the country's strength or influence.

I know it's very comfortable to sit at home and stay with your family, kids and friends and not worry about anything. But with the platform we have we should be the people that scream at the social issues and put them out there so as a society we can move forward.

I just care about the heart and soul of our country and the direction it's headed in.

When communism collapsed in 1989, the big story that had been hardwired into citizens of western countries - that of the global battle against a distant dark and evil force - came to an abrupt end.

In 2012, when Mitt Romney named Russia as our greatest geopolitical foe, Democrats scoffed and accused Republicans of trying to ignite a new Cold War.

If there's Cold War, no 'Star Wars' in China.