Bashar al Assad

Syria is geographically and politically in the middle of the Middle East.

Despite the ethnic diversity within each nation, the social fabric of the region by and large is one.

Armies are not only for offensives.

Lebanon was under Israeli occupation, up to its capital, but we did not consider that a disaster. Why? Because it was very clear that there are ways to resist.

Hizbullah is not a militia.

It should be known that Israel is based on treachery.

I can only go one way. I’ve not got a reverse gear.

My first four jobs were minimum wage or close to it.

Right before the 2000 [U.S.] elections, about 75 percent regarded it as virtually meaningless, some game involving rich contributors, party managers, and candidates who are trained to project images that conceal issues, but might pick up some votes.

Fascism is a caricature of Jacobinism.

Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism.

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.

To assert that we desire to bring about revolution in other countries, by interfering with their lives, is to speak of something which does not exist and which we never preach.

We don’t appreciate what we have until it’s gone. Freedom is like that. It’s like air. When you have it, you don’t notice it.

Despite the ethnic diversity within each nation, the social fabric of the region by and large is one.

To those who oppose us, we say, ‘Strike the woman, and you strike the rock.’

Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value.

In fact, the belief that neurophysiology is even relevant to the functioning of the mind is just hypothesis. Who knows if we’re looking at the right aspects of the brain at all. Maybe there are other aspects of the brain that nobody has even dreamt of looking at yet. That’s often happened in the history of science. When people say that the mental is the neurophysiological at a higher level, they’re being radically unscientific. We know a lot about the mental from a scientific point of view. We have explanatory theories that account for a lot of things. The belief that neurophysiology is implicated in these things could be true, but we have every little evidence for it. So, it’s just a kind of hope; look around and you see neurons; maybe they’re implicated.

I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.

I’m going to be so much better a president for having been at the CIA that you’re not going to believe it.