Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Quotes

Let me tell you quite bluntly that this king business has given me personally nothing but headaches.

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

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

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“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.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“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.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

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

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“Let the dog bark; the moon shall beam on.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

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.

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

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

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

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

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“I have learned by experience that a tragic end awaits anyone who dares cross swords with me; Nasser is no more, John and Robert Kennedy died at the hands of assassins, their brother Edward has been disgraced, Krushchev was toppled, the list is endless.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

Nixon is a strong leader with a good grasp of the world's problems. He knows that the only way to argue with the communists is from a position of strength.

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“Nixon has the audacity to tell me to do nothing in the interest of my country until he dictactes where that interest lies. At the same time he threatens me that failure to follow his so-called advice will be to jeopardize the special relations between our two countries. I say to hell with such special relations.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“The Saudis have never shown any respect for human rights, either now or in the past. Even a petty burglar faces having one of his hands chopped off. The liberal press in America prefers to ignore all this, although they don't hesitate to blacken the reputation of Iran.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“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.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“There is only one thing I can say about the Shah- he knows how to draw a crowd.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

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

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“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?”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

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

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

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

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“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?”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“The Shah regarded politics as the province of demagoguery, an art in which only charlatans could excel. He had no time for what he saw as the tedious process of achieving consensus through debate and discussion and tried to justify his solitary exercise of power by insisting it was what Iran needed to catch up with lost time. He believed he was more patriotic than anyone else and needed no advice on how best to promote and protect the highest interests of the nation.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

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

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

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

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“I am convinced that the majority of the religious hierarchy today deplores the hardship inflicted on our people. I am referring not only to the martyrs but of the families who have been dispersed and terrified, who have no resources, and to the four million unemployed who are suffering from the economic chaos of a country which only a year earlier was giving employment to a million foreigners. Those who have chosen to serve God must feel profoundly sad at seeing ridicule poured on the most sacred principles of our religion.”

— 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.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“Contrary to what many believed, my father was kind and tenderhearted, especially towards his family. His forbidding sternness seemed to melt into love, kindness, and easy familiarity when he was with us. Especially with me, his acknowledged successor to the throne, he would play lightheartedly. When we were alone together, he would sing me little songs; I don't remember his ever doing this in front of others, but when only the two of us were there, he would often sing to me.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“As for King Hussein of Jordan, I cannot praise him enough. He is not only a friend, but a brother. His qualities as a man and his goodness of heart are enhanced by great courage and a true love of his country.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“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.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“I calculated the amount of time I spent with my father during my entire life ... the total amount of time I had with him, if you add up the hours, was about two months. My father was a busy man ... we had very few opportunities to really sit down and talk as father and son.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“Henry Kissinger is possessed of a truly superior intelligence, in addition to which he has two qualities which, unfortunately, many great men lack: he is able to listen and he has a very subtle sense of humour.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

Today the name of America has a magic meaning for the most distant commmunities of the world.

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

I did not share the enthusiasm of certain politicians for the National Front leader, it was because I had noticed, in the past, some strange contradictions between Mossadeq's declared ends and his actions. Officially he defended nationalist anti-colonialism and was the most intransigent patriot who declared that no concessions or advantages should be granted to foreign powers. He described his doctrine as a "negative balance" and in fact his greatest failing was that he was negative.

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“We may be delighted to see Israel putting the Arabs in their place, but we have repeatedly condemned their occupation of Arab territory.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“When you think I've been wounded by a good five bullets, one in the face, one in the shoulder, one in the head, two in the body, and that the last one stuck in the barrel because the trigger jammed ... You have to believe in miracles. I've had so many air disasters, and yet I've always come out unscathed - thanks to a miracle while by God and the prophets.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“O Cyrus , great King, King of Kings, Achaemenian King, King of the land of Iran. I, the Shahanshah of Iran, offer thee salutations from myself and from my nation. Rest in peace, for we are awake, and we will always stay awake.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“I perfectly understand the particular attention which you pay to the question of nuclear energy, and fully realize the possible dangers and catastrophes which might result for mankind from an irresponsible attitude. In this field my wish is for Iran to put all her efforts towards the peaceful use of atomic energy. We shall continue to co-operate with all the nations of the world to attain this end in the interests of human society.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“I have always endeavoured, as my double duty of believer and sovereign dictated, to follow the precepts of the sacred Book of Islam: precepts of balance, justice and moderation. Although my religious education was very literal, in that I learnt to understand the precepts of the Koran precisely according to the text, we have seen that on several occasions throughout my life, I have felt myself to be very particularly in the hands of the Almighty.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

He [the King of Morocco] spends half his time asleep and the rest of it buried between the legs of the fairer sex.

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“The Jewish press in the USA is solely responsible for our poor publicity.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

Who on earth do the Americans suppose their allies are amongst the Arab world? Even Saudi Arabia they seem to regard as nothing more than a resevoir of oil and money.

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“A person who does not enter the new [Rastakhiz] party ... is either an individual who belongs to an illegal organization, or is related to the outlaw Tudeh Party, or in other words is a traitor. Such an individual belongs in an Iranian prison, or if he desires, he can leave the country tomorrow ... because he is not an Iranian, he has no nation, and his activities are illegal and punishable according to law.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“What's happened recently in Pakistan, India and Kuwait only goes to show that it's futile to imitate Western democracy. They've ended up exactly where they started.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“Soviet propaganda is remarkably effective and the Americans are even more remarkably stupid.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

Growing terrorism, permissive societies, democracy collapsing through lack of law and order. If things continue on their present track, the disintegration of Western societies will occur much sooner than you think under the hammer blows of fascism and communism. Freedom is not something that does not have a breaking point, and your enemies would like you to reach that point.

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“How can you hope to build up a nation by fragmenting its politics into opposing camps? Whatever one group builds, the other will endeavour to destroy.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“Pride comes before a fall- although in [Henry Kissinger's] case it's more conceit than pride.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“I personally object to the veil on aesthetic as well as other grounds; but I must admit that, for instance in the suburbs of American cities, I have often seen women attired more sloppily than our Persian women normally are.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“The world petroleum story is one of the most inhuman known to man: in it, elementary moral and social principles are jeered at. If powerful oil trusts no longer despoil and humiliate our country it is not because these predators have become human, but because we have won a hard-fought battle which has been going on since the beginning of the century.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“I cannot avoid wondering about the feelings of those who are now the apparent rulers of Iran. They are, despite their mistakes and the crimes which they have instigated, men of faith who claim to be sent by God. I hope they will eventually realize that the revolution which they believe they have brought about is not to the glory of God, but serves the forces of evil.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

“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.”

— Mohammed Reza Pahlavi