Zarif Quotes & Sayings

We've never declared war on anybody. We [Iran] defended ourselves against wars that were imposed on us. We have no desire to engage in confrontation with anybody. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

The United States wanted to send its trained rebel groups to Syria to fight ISIS. Out of twenty-five hundred rebels they had trained, only seventy accepted to go to Syria to fight ISIS. Everybody else wanted to go to Syria to fight the government. So you've got to wake up and smell the coffee ... The rebel groups have not fired a shot against ISIS. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

Tehran believes it's none of our business or anybody else's to decide the future of personalities in other countries. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

I think we are making an assumption that that is the outcome of the negotiations. I think President Assad will be prepared to accept whatever the outcome of the intra-Syrian dialogue and the decision of the Syrian people is. But people are trying to decide and determine the outcome of the negotiation before even we agree to start the negotiations. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

The Persian Gulf is our lifeline ... We will respect international navigation, for us, freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf is a must. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

He who learns death unlearns slavery. — Cornel West

metamorphosis is like death, — Kai Ashante Wilson

Understanding that these statements do not represent reality, we should not be threatened by the language that he has used. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

You cannot have security at the expense of the insecurity of others — Mohammad Javad Zarif

I think the most important challenge that remains is this mentality in Washington that sanctions have been an asset, and some people want to find even an excuse to keep them or an excuse to reintroduce them. I don't know whether they've looked at the record of how sanctions actually produce exactly the opposite of what they wanted to produce. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

Of course the servants had chosen not to follow me; I'd failed them already by refusing to be a man they could believe in. — Megan Whalen Turner

It is important for everybody to insure that the process will go on, that the ceasefire will hold. Of course, there is no ceasefire against Daesh [the Islamic State], Jabhat al Nusra, and Al Qaeda. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I'd go looking for the England of English Literature, and he nodded and said: 'It's there.'
Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. Looking around the rug one thing's for sure: it's here. — Helene Hanff

So there are two separate tracks. One track is for the Syrian government and the opposition that is interested in a peaceful future of Syria to come together for national unity, for the political process. At the same time, it is a requirement for everybody to stop supporting the extremist groups, to stop allowing them safe passage, to stop allowing them to receive weapons, to stop allowing them to receive financial assistance, and to come together in actually fighting them. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

Nobody thinks identically on Syria. But we share the same view with Russia that the future of the personalities in Syria will be determined by the people of Syria and not by people outside Syria. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

I can erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under my guidance. Only your misperceptions stand in your way. Without them your choice is certain. — Foundation For Inner Peace

We consider ISIS and extremism to be a threat to all of us in the region ... Our position is that we help the legitimate governments in the region that have representation in the United Nations. We help the Iraqi government on their request through advisers; we help the Syrian government on their request to help with advisers to fight extremists ... So it's both lawful and legitimate. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

We're [Iran] not dismantling anything. We are uninstalling some centrifuges and reconstructing the Arak reactor, modernizing it ... The remaining activities that we need undertake will not take more than several days, less than two weeks. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

No one can be a yogi, maintaining a state of mental equilibrium, free from inner involvement in planned desireful activities, unless he has renounced identification with his ego and its unsatisfiable lust for the fruits of actions. — Paramahansa Yogananda

I don't want to go to Washington to be a co-sponsor of some bland little bill nobody cares about. I don't want to go to Washington to get my name on something that makes small change at the margin. — Elizabeth Warren

I am not like Hitchcock, directing the reaction of the public or the audience. I don't like that. I think this is some kind of fascism - 'You need to react like that.' No. No. It's not like this; everyone needs to react as he can. — Alejandro Jodorowsky

The reason why people wear pajamas to the airport in the first place is so that they'll be comfortable during their flight. But you know, typically, air travel is 50 to 75 percent of the time you spend traveling. The rest of the time you spend in public places like airports and around other people. That's when looking good trumps comfort. — Casey Neistat

One outcome is almost certain. Extremism stands to benefit enormously from an uncalculated adventure in Iraq,. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

People have been fed misinformation. The fact is that the fighting that is going on on the ground in Syria is with Al Qaeda, with Jabhat al Nusra, with Daesh. The pockets, small pockets, of other groups are usually surrounded by these various extremist groups ... Once they stop fighting, there is nothing for the Syrian government to hit other than the terrorist organizations. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

We call upon the nuclear-weapon states to immediately cease their plans to further invest in modernizing and extending the life span of their nuclear weapons and related facilities. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

This visa-waiver thing is absurd. Has anybody in the West been targeted by any Iranian national, anybody of Iranian origin, or anyone travelling to Iran? Whereas many people have been targeted by the nationals of your allies, people visiting your allies, and people transiting the territory of, again, your allies. So you're looking at the wrong address. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

Wake up to the real world. Look at what's happening in the region. Look at where people are going, how people react to humiliation and marginalization. I do not think a few more votes is worth making this menace - that we all face - far more complicated. People have to wake up to that and respond to that, not politicize it. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

If anything caused ISIS, it was the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

Iran's military hardware is less than a fraction of that of any of the countries in this region. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

Last time I said something perhaps I shouldn't have, something that's been taken the wrong way: "The poor are always with you." At that moment, back then, I wanted my friends' attention. I meant I was going to die soon, but they would have the rest of their lives to care for the poor. But the rich have twisted my words to mean something quite different: that there's nothing you can do about the poor. That the poor are part of life, like disease or accidents or hurricanes or getting old. Poverty is natural. You'll never get rid of it, so forget about trying. Don't worry that the poor have so much less than you do. Go eat your big meal, go drive your big car, go sleep in your big house. Let the poor look in the windows. Jesus says it's OK. Well, Jesus doesn't say it's OK. OK? P — Tony Hendra

You know where the people who killed people in San Bernardino came from. You know where people who did 9/11 came from. You know where the people who did Paris came from, where they transited, where they went. None of them even set foot in Iran. So why are you punishing people who are visiting Iran for that? ... We're not going to radicalize them. We never have. Your allies have radicalized people who visited. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which d through us will produce thanksgiving to God. — Anonymous