Mohammed Reza Pahlavi Quotes

We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us.

I want the standard of living in Iran in ten years' time to be exactly on a level with that in Europe today. In twenty years' time we shall be ahead of the United States.

My 2020 Vision for India is to transform it into a developed nation. That cannot be abstract; it is a lifeline.

At the same time, we are keenly aware that China is still the largest developing country in the world and we need to make long and hard efforts if we are to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects and basically achieve modernization.

The civilized world is far ahead of us. We have no choice but to catch up.

America…could within twenty years bring us to a degree of development which Turks, left to themselves, would not be able to achieve in a century. It would make Turkey prosperous, rich and happy and turn Turks into a strong and civilized nation.

Developing nations want to become developed nations.

Africa is no more this poor continent. It's on the march.

Education, particularly higher education, will take Africa into the mainstream of globalization.

Cambodia possesses now the rights to look far into the future and everything for making a future construction is waiting for the Cambodian own efforts.

We need to reaffirm that politics is not merely compatible with economic progress and development in the 21st century, but essential to it.

Once we started to urbanize, we put ourselves on this treadmill. We traded away stability for growth. And growth requires change.

If the United States isn’t keeping pace with the rest of the civilized world, then for its own good it needs to change.

The major challenge facing us is to elevate our national life to the highest level of civilization and prosperity.

Every country has her own way of development.

Since the war [WWII], the world has been rushing forward at an unprecedented and exhilarating speed … Yet Britain lags behind, lacking the will or the plan which can bring this future within the reach of us all.

People want development, modern thinking. They want to encourage and support research in agriculture and other fields.

Remember, our focus should remain on development because it is development alone that can transform this nation as well as the lives of its people.

People always want welfare, development, and good governance. As long as you are delivering, people are with you.

We need a peaceful, modern Cambodia. We need to achieve that. It's not easy.

Growth is not the end-all-goal of politics, but it is one of the most compelling deliverables.

Thomas Friedman's 'The World is Flat' sold more copies in India than in the U.K. The market for go-getting business books or wonkish tomes by corporate moguls posing as philosopher kings has grown dramatically in modernising China and India.

I'm reasonably optimistic about the future, especially the future of the United States - for the century, at least.

Haiti has changed a lot.

Until the last great war, a general expectation of material improvement was an idea peculiar to Western man. Now war and its aftermath have made economic and social progress a political imperative in every quarter of the globe.