Bashar al Assad

Since its very inception, Israel has been a threat.

It is natural that we should always expect an Israeli attack, even when it does not threaten.

When our interests matched, the Americans have been good to us, and when the interests differed, they wanted us to mold ourselves to them, which we refused.

Armies are not only for offensives.

Hizbullah is not a militia.

The problem with the West is that they start with political reform going towards democracy. If you want to go towards democracy, the first thing is to involve the people in decision making, not to make it.

Truth is treason in the empire of lies.

Case by case, we find that conformity is the easy way, and the path to privilege and prestige; dissidence carries personal costs that may be severe, even in a society that lacks such means of control as death squads, psychiatric prisons, or extermination camps.

President Obama hasn’t been elected by the American people in order to be pleasant to Russia.

In war you can be killed only once. In politics, many times.

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

It is because Russia is seen as a threat, because Russia is seen as becoming a competitor. I believe this approach is mistaken.

In 1995, Russia virtually gave Chechnya de facto statehood and independence even though, de jure, it didn’t recognize Chechnya as an independent state. And I would like to emphasize strongly that Russia withdrew all of its troops, we moved the prosecutors, we moved all the police, dismantled all the courts, completely, 100 percent.

Debates, I hate.

Terrorism has no nationality or religion.

I am the hero of Africa.

You don’t have to set limits on your talent and your ambition – or those of your children. You don’t have to be grateful to survive in a world made by others.

It’s been fascinating – and exhilarating – watching this movement mushroom over the last few weeks, this campaign is about spreading a message of hope and change based on the central choice – five years or more of continued austerity, or a plan for investment and growth that stands up for the majority.

At the time of the First World War there was a fringe of dissidents, Bertrand Russell for example, who were in jail; Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknicht, in jail; Eugene Debs, in jail. That’s the standard picture throughout history. We find it right now.

To escape the impact of a well-functioning system of propaganda that bars dissent and unwanted fact while fostering lively debate within the permitted bounds is remarkably difficult.

One has to be insincere and promise something which you cannot fulfill. So you either have to be a fool who does not understand what you are promising, or deliberately be lying.