Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Quotes - Page 2

We may be delighted to see Israel putting the Arabs in their place, but we have repeatedly condemned their occupation of Arab territory.

Yugoslavia is, with Iran, the only country which under difficult, not to say agonising, circumstances stood up to Joseph Stalin. It was not easy to unite ethnic groups or to modernize a country like Yugoslavia, and it must be acknowledged that Marshal Tito achieved something extraordinary. May God grant that his successors be as capable as he.

Many Westerners forget that when the Prophet spoke of four wives as the maximum allowable number, he had in mind a reduction to four as compared to the number then often prevailing; moreover, Mohammed specified that a man should acquire more than one wife only if he could treat them all with equal justice - obviously a difficult feat for even the most diligent man to achieve. In effect, then, the Prophet curtailed the number of wives.

What's happened recently in Pakistan, India and Kuwait only goes to show that it's futile to imitate Western democracy. They've ended up exactly where they started.

When you think I've been wounded by a good five bullets, one in the face, one in the shoulder, one in the head, two in the body, and that the last one stuck in the barrel because the trigger jammed... You have to believe in miracles. I've had so many air disasters, and yet I've always come out unscathed - thanks to a miracle while by God and the prophets.

Nixon would like to consign us to to the level of the most backward countries in the whole Middle East. Why lower us to the standard of the Saudis rather than raising the Saudis to meet us?

I calculated the amount of time I spent with my father during my entire life... the total amount of time I had with him, if you add up the hours, was about two months. My father was a busy man... we had very few opportunities to really sit down and talk as father and son.

This criticism is ridiculous. The twenty-five hundreth anniversary celebration cost me less than the inauguration of each new president of the United States.

Who on earth do the Americans suppose their allies are amongst the Arab world? Even Saudi Arabia they seem to regard as nothing more than a resevoir of oil and money.

Pride comes before a fall - although in [Henry Kissinger's] case it's more conceit than pride.

I am convinced that the majority of the religious hierarchy today deplores the hardship inflicted on our people. I am referring not only to the martyrs but of the families who have been dispersed and terrified, who have no resources, and to the four million unemployed who are suffering from the economic chaos of a country which only a year earlier was giving employment to a million foreigners. Those who have chosen to serve God must feel profoundly sad at seeing ridicule poured on the most sacred principles of our religion.

A person who does not enter the new [Rastakhiz] party is either an individual who belongs to an illegal organization, or is related to the outlaw Tudeh Party, or in other words is a traitor. Such an individual belongs in an Iranian prison, or if he desires, he can leave the country tomorrow, because he is not an Iranian, he has no nation, and his activities are illegal and punishable according to law.

Let me tell you quite bluntly that this king business has given me personally nothing but headaches.

It would serve the Americans right if we emptied the prisons and let the subversives take power. They'd soon show Washington just how much they appreciate good old American values.

Shah is a kind of magic word with the Persian people.

The world petroleum story is one of the most inhuman known to man: in it, elementary moral and social principles are jeered at. If powerful oil trusts no longer despoil and humiliate our country it is not because these predators have become human, but because we have won a hard-fought battle which has been going on since the beginning of the century.

I have always endeavoured, as my double duty of believer and sovereign dictated, to follow the precepts of the sacred Book of Islam: precepts of balance, justice and moderation. Although my religious education was very literal, in that I learnt to understand the precepts of the Koran precisely according to the text, we have seen that on several occasions throughout my life, I have felt myself to be very particularly in the hands of the Almighty.

I personally object to the veil on aesthetic as well as other grounds; but I must admit that, for instance in the suburbs of American cities, I have often seen women attired more sloppily than our Persian women normally are.

I perfectly understand the particular attention which you pay to the question of nuclear energy, and fully realize the possible dangers and catastrophes which might result for mankind from an irresponsible attitude. In this field my wish is for Iran to put all her efforts towards the peaceful use of atomic energy. We shall continue to co-operate with all the nations of the world to attain this end in the interests of human society.

There is only one thing I can say about the Shah- he knows how to draw a crowd.

The Shah regarded politics as the province of demagoguery, an art in which only charlatans could excel. He had no time for what he saw as the tedious process of achieving consensus through debate and discussion and tried to justify his solitary exercise of power by insisting it was what Iran needed to catch up with lost time. He believed he was more patriotic than anyone else and needed no advice on how best to promote and protect the highest interests of the nation.

contrary to what many believed, my father was kind and tenderhearted, especially towards his family. His forbidding sternness seemed to melt into love, kindness, and easy familiarity when he was with us. Especially with me, his acknowledged successor to the throne, he would play lightheartedly. When we were alone together, he would sing me little songs; I don't remember his ever doing this in front of others, but when only the two of us were there, he would often sing to me.

Nixon is a strong leader with a good grasp of the world's problems. He knows that the only way to argue with the communists is from a position of strength.

Today the name of America has a magic meaning for the most distant commmunities of the world.

Was the collaboration of some slaves any different than the silence of some Iranians who stood by and did nothing as Savak thugs murdered and tortured opponents of the Shah? How could we judge other men until we had stood in their shoes?