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.

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.

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

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

Let the dog bark; the moon shall beam on.

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

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.

Thank God we in Iran have neither the desire nor the need to suffer from democracy.

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.

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.

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

I long to create something that can't be used to keep us passive: I want to write a script about plumbing, how every pipe is joined to every other.

I don't take too many things too seriously.

If you're black living in the community and you want to change things, there are going to be things that happen. That's true of anybody. I mean you could use celebrity as a similar metaphor.

When we learn to trust the universe, we shall be happy, prosperous and well

We can't win a war, but we can win an election.

What each one of us fundamentally needs is that inner peace which is to be discovered solely within ourselves, which no-one else can give, which the world with all its resources, can never supply.

In all our Yogas this renunciation is necessary. This is the stepping-stone and the real centre and the real heart of all spiritual culture - renunciation. This is religion - renunciation.

Dreams are made possible if you try.

If there be not a religious element in the relations of men, such relations are miserable and doomed to ruin.

The ultimate aim in life should be to fulfill to the utmost all that within our ability and to share that which is good and beautiful.