“If you have a government that is elected, they need to do the hard work — because if they don’t, they won’t be around the next time the ballot box is open.”

You’re always going to have extremists in every religion.

Earth’s dispossessed are vulnerable targets for extremists: those who teach that global justice is meaningless; that satisfaction can come only in violence, division, and intellectual isolation.

The security and the future of Jordan is hand-in-hand with the future of the Palestinians and the Israelis.

We have peace with Israel. We’re actually the last man standing. So there is going to be immense pressure and people asking,

Remember you don’t do anything in isolation.

I’m not the type of person that is forced.

We want to be, I think, an example for the rest of the Arab world, because there are a lot of people who say that the only democracy you can have in the Middle East is the Muslim Brotherhood.

In our view, successful reform is not an event. It is a sustainable process that will build on its own successes – a virtuous cycle of change.

Over the past few years, the road to confrontation has shown its consequences: loss of innocent lives, destruction and fear. Most costly, however, was the loss of hope.

We have to always hope in humanity that people will make the right choices.

The monarchy that I hand over to my son is not going to be the same one that I have inherited. … There is a tendency by a lot of officials to hide behind the king.

When there’s a status quo, usually what shakes everybody up is some sort of military confrontation, at which point we all come running and screaming to pick up the pieces.

Political development should start at the grassroots.

You’re always going to have terrorism.

Wikileaks didn’t help confidence with American administrations because of conversations made public so easily.

When we try to push the envelope, there are certain sectors of society that say this is a Zionist plot to sort of destabilize our country, or this is an American agenda.