Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Quotes

I will frankly confess that I was convinced that God had ordained me to do certain things for the service of my nation, things that perhaps could not be done by anyone else. In whatever I have done and whatever I do in the future, I consider myself as an agent of the will of God.

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

A crown, a throne could not be based on the not too very solid foundation of blood.

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.

How can you hope to build up a nation by fragmenting its politics into opposing camps? Whatever one group builds, the other will endeavour to destroy.

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.

Muslim brothers be damned; they're our greatest enemies. You know yourself that I'm a Muslim, even a fanatical Muslim. But that does nothing to alter my opinion of the Arabs.

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.

For all its apparent tolerance, the USA maintains a peculiar balance between the forces of capitalism and democracy. To achieve this I feel sure the country is guided by some hidden force; an organization working in secrecy, powerful enough to dispose of the Kennedys and of anyone else who gets in its way.

As far as we are concerned, we are not the toys of any country, including the United States.

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.

My advisers built a wall between myself and my people. I didn't realize what was happening. When I woke up, I had lost my people.

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.

O Cyrus , great King, King of Kings, Achaemenian King, King of the land of Iran. I, the Shahanshah of Iran, offer thee salutations from myself and from my nation. Rest in peace, for we are awake, and we will always stay awake.

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?

The great powers claim that whatever they possess is theirs by right, but whatever we, the smaller countries possess is negotiable.

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.

Henry Kissinger is possessed of a truly superior intelligence, in addition to which he has two qualities which, unfortunately, many great men lack: he is able to listen and he has a very subtle sense of humour.

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

Soviet propaganda is remarkably effective and the Americans are even more remarkably stupid.

The Jewish press in the USA is solely responsible for our poor publicity.

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?

The Saudis have never shown any respect for human rights, either now or in the past. Even a petty burglar faces having one of his hands chopped off. The liberal press in America prefers to ignore all this, although they don't hesitate to blacken the reputation of Iran.

I want the standard of living in Iran in ten years' time to be exactly on a level with that in Europe today. In twenty years' time we shall be ahead of the United States.

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.

To be first in the Middle East is not enough. We must raise ourselves to the level of a great world power.

I LOVE YOU SHAHAN SHAH MOHAMADREZA GOD BLESSE YOU

Growing terrorism, permissive societies, democracy collapsing through lack of law and order. If things continue on their present track, the disintegration of Western societies will occur much sooner than you think under the hammer blows of fascism and communism. Freedom is not something that does not have a breaking point, and your enemies would like you to reach that point.

Nobody can influence me, nobody. Still less a woman. Women are important in a man's life only if they're beautiful and charming and keep their femininity.

As for King Hussein of Jordan, I cannot praise him enough. He is not only a friend, but a brother. His qualities as a man and his goodness of heart are enhanced by great courage and a true love of his country.

You approach the Mullahs as if they are normal people. They are not. You see them in your own image; you should not.

They want liberalization! I'll give them liberalization. I'll loosen the screws until the Americans beg me to tighten them again.

I did not share the enthusiasm of certain politicians for the National Front leader, it was because I had noticed, in the past, some strange contradictions between Mossadeq's declared ends and his actions. Officially he defended nationalist anti-colonialism and was the most intransigent patriot who declared that no concessions or advantages should be granted to foreign powers. He described his doctrine as a "negative balance" and in fact his greatest failing was that he was negative.

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

My main mistake was to have made an ancient people advance by forced marches toward independence, health, culture, affluence, comfort.