“Any cooperation that doesn’t go through the Syrian government is not legal. If it’s not legal, we cannot cooperate with, and we don’t recognize and we don’t accept.”

I don’t believe that in a couple of months Erdogan and the United States regime, and the Western regimes in general, and of course Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are going to stop the support of the terrorists.

We’ve been living in difficult circumstances and we prepare ourselves for every possibility. But that doesn’t mean if you’re prepared things will be better ; it’s going to get worse with any foolish strike or stupid war.

I will tell [Barack Obama] very simply : present what you have as evidence to the public, be transparent.

As I said, this [repercussions] may take different forms : direct and indirect. Direct when people want to retaliate, or governments. Indirect when you’re going to have instability and the spread of terrorism all over the region that will influence the west directly.

When you talk about cooperation, it means cooperation between two legal governments, not cooperation between foreign government and any faction within Syria.

The logical thing is to implement the Arab Defense Agreement.

We’ve been dealing with this kind of terrorism since the fifties, since the Muslim Brotherhood came to Syria at that time.

Many people do not understand the difference between peace and a peace treaty. If you want to have real peace with normal relations between people, you need to have comprehensive peace.

We believe that Lebanon has been the first real experience for all the Arabs.

What the army is doing is cleaning those areas, and the indication that the army is strong is that it’s making advancement in that area. It never went to one area and couldn’t enter to it – that’s an indication.

Terrorists have been supported by tens of foreign countries, so Syria alone wouldn’t be able to face this kind of war without the help of its friends.

When you’re in the middle of a storm, leaving your country just because you have to leave without any reasonable reason, it means you’re quitting your country and this is treason.

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

In Aleppo we had the missile itself, and the material, and the sample from the sand, from the soil, and samples from the blood [of chemical weapons].

You said treaties, and a Russian official said ; we have not agreement… contracts, that we have to fulfill, and those contracts are like any country ; you buy armaments, you buy anything you want.

Opposition doesn’t mean to take arms and kill people and destroy everything.

People should think things out fresh and not just accept conventional terms and the conventional way of doing things.

If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go.

Concern yourself more with accepting responsibility than with assigning blame.

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue.

They come from acceptance of American values, not a rejection of them, and recognition that they’re rejected by the U.S. government and by U.S. elites, which does lead to hatred and anger.

The keys to patience are acceptance and faith. Accept things as they are, and look realistically at the world around you.

The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money.

We must accept life for what it actually is – a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature.