My father was a construction engineer, and my mother was a production engineer. – Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Large companies cannot finance political parties as their shareholders and employees have different political views. – Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Fortunes are made, and disappear, over the lifetime of a single generation. Today, a person in essence takes his wealth from society just for the duration of his or her lifetime. The next generation has to create it anew. – Mikhail Khodorkovsky
The right to private property meant at the same time the right and duty to be personally concerned about your own well-being, to be personally concerned about your family’s income, to be personally concerned about your future. This is hard work. – Mikhail Khodorkovsky
I knew President Yeltsin well. He would never have tolerated government officials demonstratively showing off the millions they acquired through corruption, the way it’s done today. – Mikhail Khodorkovsky
As for the company, I did all I could from the very outset of this affair to remove Yukos and its employees from danger. – Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Today, a skilled manager makes more than the owner. And owners fight each other to get the skilled managers. – Mikhail Khodorkovsky
What’s important to me now is to uphold my good name and achieve a fair court decision – the past cannot be recovered anyway. – Mikhail Khodorkovsky
