YELTSIN: the things he said

"Let's not talk about communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky."

"Let's not talk about communism. Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky."

-- 1989, on a visit to the US.

"Strikes have already begun in Leningrad and some factories in the Urals have walked out. Wherever my appeal for a strike is heard, people back it."

- August 19th, 1991, after he climbed on a tank outside parliament and urged supporters to resist communist hardliners who had launched a coup against President Mikhail Gorbachev.

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"Life has shown us with some brutality that Russia cannot feel safe without its own national guard."

- August, 22nd, 1991, to adulating supporters after the coup was thwarted.

"[The war] may have been one of my mistakes."

-- on the Chechen war he began in 1994.

"It just happened -- what can one do?"

-- September 30th, 1994, explaining that he had overslept on a refuelling stop in Ireland, failing to meet the taoiseach, Albert Reynolds.

"A man must live like a great bright flame and burn as brightly as he can. In the end he burns out. But that is better than a mean little flame."

- 1990, talking to a reporter.

"We are stuck half way, having left the old shore; we keep floundering in a stream of problems which engulf us and prevent us from reaching a new shore."

-- 1997 state of the nation address, about painful transition to a capitalist economy.

"Emotions sometimes get the upper hand in assessing the Russian-American partnership. This is not the approach that Bill and I have."

-- March 1997, at a news conference with US president Bill Clinton after their summit.

"The eastward expansion of Nato is a mistake and a serious one at that. Nevertheless, in order to minimise the negative consequences for Russia, we decided to sign an agreement with Nato."

- on Nato enlargement, at the same news conference.

- (Reuters)