Mohammad Reza I of Iran Quotes

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

No people can live in the past - not even in its own past. But if it no longer has a link with its history, it must of necessity perish. Persia, crowded with hardship and glory, ordeals and hopes. With the help of the Almighty, the lessons of the past constitute the best guide for the citizens of the future.

All I can say is that women, when they govern, are much harsher than men. Much crueler. Much more bloodthirsty. I'm citing facts, not opinions. You're heartless when you have power. Think of Catherine de Medicis, Catherine of Russia, Elizabeth I of England. Not to mention Lucrezia Borgia, with her poisons and intrigues. You're schemers, you're evil. All of you.

Better that he take risks than that he ends up a shrinking violet like Ahmad Shah Qajar.

My visions were miracles that saved the country. My reign has saved the country and it’s saved it because God was besides me. I mean, it’s not fair for me to take all the credit for myself for the great things that I’ve done for Iran. Mind you, I could. But I don’t want to, because I know that there was someone else behind me. It was God.

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

We were wrong to believe that the British are our friends. You are obsessed solely with yout own selfish interests and treat us as a people beyond the pale. But your attitude is a matter of profound disinterest. Your democratic system has already erupted into chaos. We shall soon overtake you and in a decade you will be struggling in our wake. Perhaps then you will remember how you treated us.

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

You Westerners simply don't understand the philosophy behind my power. The Iranians think of their sovereign as a father. What you call 'my celebration' was to them the celebration of Iran's father. The monarchy is the cement of our unity. In celebrating our twenty-five hundreth anniversary, all I was doing was celebrating the anniversary of my country, of which I am the father. Now, if to you, a father is inevitably a dictator, that is your problem, not mine.

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

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.

I wish to salute the intransigent patriotism and the unflinching determination for independence of the Roumanian president. I was allied to him by a true friendship.

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

You think that Mr Khomeini, [an] uneducated person … could have planned all this? Masterminded all this, set up all the organization? I know that one man alone could not have done it … I know that a tremendous amount of money was spent … I know that top experts in propaganda were used to show us like tyrants and monsters, and the other side as democratic liberal revolutionaries who want to save the country.