“If you ask Americans whether they’ve been successful at sealing the border with Mexico, they’ll tell you that it’s a very difficult proposition.”

Freedom and democracy are nothing but instruments, just like stability. The goal is called progress and growth. Anyone who puts freedom ahead of stability is hurting growth.

On the border area with Lebanon where [Hezbollah forces] want to protect themselves and cooperate with us, but they don’t exist all over Syria.

It’s a dangerous thing when someone gets up in the morning and has nothing to eat.

Whenever you have a war, the civilians and the innocents will pay the price. That’s in any war, any war is a bad war.

Under Syrian law, a journalist is not allowed to report on military matters. This may be wrong or right, but that’s just the way it is.

We didn’t say that 80% [of terrorists], for example, or the majority or the vast majority, are foreigners. We said the vast majority are Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda offshoot organizations in this region.

Everything else should be a piece of cake. Feel good, feel happy, feel healthy, feel loved, feel abundant, feel creative, feel compassionate, feel knowledgeable, feel powerful.

The problem is not the occupation, but how people deal with it.

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.

From the first day I took the decision as President to defend my country.

Foreigners cannot bring freedom, cannot bring democracy, because this is related to the culture, to the different factors that affect or influence that society. You cannot bring it, you cannot import it.

Think of the war against terrorism. In my view, Washington’s approach can be compared to a doctor constantly banging away at a tumor instead of removing it surgically.

We never said that the majority [of the terrorists] are not Syrians, but we said that the minority is what they call “free Syrian army.” That’s what we said.

Syria is in a state of war since its land was occupied for more than four decades, and the nature of the frontier in Syria implies that most of the army is in inhabited areas, most of the centers are in inhabited areas.

For the West, they wanted to undermine the Syrian positions. For the petrodollar countries like Saudi Arabia, they’re thinking undermining Syria will undermine Iran on sectarian basis.

The Russians always base their policies on values, and these values are the sovereignty of other countries, the international law, respecting other people, other cultures, so they don’t interfere in whatever is related to the future of Syria or the Syrian people.

I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth, a nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present.

The real reason we haven’t had peace is because of a persistent refusal of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state in any border.

They need money from abroad, they need moral support and political support from abroad. They don’t have any grassroots, any incubator. So, when you stop the smuggling, we don’t have problems.

The front line with ISIS isn’t just in Iraq and Syria, it’s in Kennedy Airport and the Rio Grande. Border security is national security.

I was a black boy at the height of the crack era, which meant that my instructors pitched education as the border between those who would prosper in America, and those who would be fed to the great hydra of prison, teenage pregnancy and murder.

A woman’s friendship borders more closely on love than man’s. Men affect each other in the reflection of noble or friendly acts; whilst women ask fewer proofs and more signs and expressions of attachment.

Let not your zeal to share your principles entice you beyond your borders.

We will stop the terrorist attacks before they occur because we will not be prisoners to political correctness. Rather, we will speak the truth. Border security is national security and we will not be admitting jihadists as refugees.