“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.”

I think sadness prevails in Syria now. We don’t feel anything else but sadness because we have this killing every day, whether with chemical or any other kind.

Sometimes you may kill tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands with very primitive armaments.

We’re talking about one region, bigger regions, not only about Syria. This interlinked region, this intermingled, interlocked, whatever you want to call it ; if you strike somewhere, you have to expect the repercussions somewhere else in different forms in ways you don’t expect.

America is interested in re-arranging the region as it sees fit.

Of course, when Secretary-General is objective, he can play an important role in dealing with different officials in the United Nations in order to bring the policies of the different states – mainly Russia and the United States – toward more cooperation and more stability regarding Syria.

The army is making good advancement on daily basis against the terrorists. Of course, they still have the support of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and some Western countries including the United States, but the only option that we have in that regard is to win.

We cannot use jihadists because it’s like shooting yourself in the foot.

I don’t believe in war, I believe in the principle of deterrence.

We asked for a delegation [of the Red Cross] in March 2013 when the first attack happened in Aleppo in the north of Syria,

Terrorism is a state of mind that on the one hand has to do with ignorance and, on the other hand, can be attributed to a feeling of desperation over the political situation, which at some point takes the form of revenge.

[Hezbollah forces] cannot exist all over Syria anyway, for many reasons, but they exist on the borders.

Al-Qaeda has one ideology and they go back to the same leadership in Afghanistan or in Syria or in Iraq. That’s the question. You have tens of thousands of foreigners, that’s definitely correct. We are fighting them on the ground and we know this.

The captain doesn’t think about death, or life, he thinks about saving his ship.

Something that many officials in the West don’t see or don’t realize or don’t acknowledge – and in the interest of the Russian people, because they have been facing terrorists for decades now.

They want to criticize you, let them criticize and do not worry. Just be transparent with your people and tell them this is the reality.

When you have terrorism, you have a war. When you have a war, you always have innocent lives that could be the victim of any war, so, we don’t have to discuss what the image in the west before discussing the image in Syria. That’s the question.

The reasons of the majority cannot be taken as good reasons.

Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous.

The majority of people perform well in a crisis and when the spotlight is on them; it’s on the Sunday afternoons of this life, when nobody is looking, that the spirit falters.

True respectability stems not from the will of the majority but from proper reasoning.

I don’t like what’s going on in Iraq, naturally. I’m part of a large majority of people who don’t, but I do not know the whole story.

I’m part of the mushball middle. I consider ‘confused’ the majority position because, thankfully.

We want all the Palestinians back in their homeland, and then there can be a fair referendum for people to choose the form of state they want. Whoever gets the majority can rule.

We [women] are the majority of the population, majority of the electorate, majority of the workforce… and yet we’re still doing majority of family unpaid or low paid labor.