Bashar al Assad

As soon as the legitimate Lebanese government is convinced that the conditions have ripened and that Lebanon is able to maintain stability on its own… Then, the Syrian forces will return to their homeland.

Armies are not only for offensives.

I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country.

You in Lebanon, your power is no match to Israel. Israel, militarily, is more powerful than you and maybe it is more powerful than all the Arab countries, or most of them.

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

None of us and none of the Arabs trust Israel.

There was a recent study by the IMF which tried to estimate the subsidy that energy corporations get from governments. The total was colossal. I think it was around $5 trillion annually. That’s got nothing to do with markets and capitalism.

The presidency is more than a popularity contest.

There is talk … of our constructing Dnieprostroy through our own means. The means needed are great, several hundred millions. Let us not get into the position of the peasant who, after accumulating a nest-egg, instead of repairing his plough and renewing his equipment, buys a gramophone and goes bankrupt.

[Overseas] we build a school, we build a road, they blow up the school, we build another school, we build another road, they blow them up, we build again. In the meantime we can’t get a f**king school in Brooklyn.

Although some people felt Adolf Hitler was bad, he was a great man and a real conqueror whose name would never be forgotten.

I thought being President would be easier than my old life.

You know what uranium is, right? This thing called nuclear weapons like lots of things are done with uranium including some bad things.

The European reaction to Obama is a European delusion.

In war I would deal with the Devil and his grandmother

The point of conservatism is not that it prevents movement forward and upward, but that it prevents movement backward and downward, into chaotic darkness and a return to a primitive state.

The general threat has always been independence. The US and its allies have regularly supported radical Islamists, sometimes to prevent the threat of secular nationalism.

When you look at a corporation, just like when you look at a slave owner, you want to distinguish between the institution and the individual. So slavery, for example, or other forms of tyranny, are inherently monstrous. The individuals participating in them may be the nicest guys you can imagine.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

I could have spent eight years doing anything, and at some level, it would have been fine. I could have focused on flowers. I could have focused on decor. I could have focused on entertainment. Because any First Lady, rightfully, gets to define her role. There’s no legislative authority; you’re not elected. And that’s a wonderful gift of freedom.

Even during the years of the Cold War, the intense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we always avoided any direct clash between our civilians and, most certainly, between our military.