62 Quotes by Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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?

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.