Jordan has a strange, haunting beauty and a sense of timelessness. Dotted with the ruins of empires once great, it is the last resort of yesterday in the world of tomorrow. I love every inch of it.
Hussein of Jordan
Let me say this loud and clear. There is a world of difference between terrorist acts and the Islamic Shari'a. Islam is not only a religion, but a way of life. And at its heart lie the sacred principles of tolerance and dialogue.
We should face reality and our past mistakes in an honest, adult way. Boasting of glory does not make glory, and singing in the dark does not dispel fear.
Sometimes, leaders' failures can cost these young people's lives.
God help us from those who believe that they are the sole possessors of truth. How we manage at times to agree willingly to become prisoners within our own minds and souls of beliefs and ideas on which we can never be flexible.
I have said this in the past and I will continue to repeat it as long as I live: Whoever tries to hurt our national unity is my enemy until the day of judgement.
We believe that peace is not just signed papers, but rather a contract between generations for the building of a more promising and less threatening future.
We respect opposition to any position or policy. But we believe that the opinion that should prevail and be respected is that of the majority.
It is not enough to tackle the mechanics of terror organizations. We must also tackle the situations that create terrorists. We desperately need to address the frustration, the loss and the despair that drive some to these actions.
We oppose occupation of land by force and we believe in dialogue as the method for regaining Arab rights. This is the spirit of the Great Arab Revolt.
God willing, we shall come to a stage where the world looks at the Palestinian question, and Palestinian rights on Palestinian national soil, as well as the questions of the occupied Syrian and Lebanese territories. These are the bases on which peace will be built.
Real victories are those that protect human life, not those that result from its destruction or emerge from its ashes.
The absence and suppression of justice can only open the way for extremists to exploit such a condition to perpetrate acts of violence against innocents.
It is my firm belief that I have a link with the past and a responsibility to the future. I cannot give up. I cannot despair. There's a whole future, generations to come. I have to keep trying.
We belong to the camp of peace. We believe in peace. We believe that our one God wishes us to live in peace and wishes peace upon us, for these are His teachings to all the followers of the three great monotheistic religions, the Children of Abraham.
I'm proud of what I've done in Jordan, but the region itself is sitting on a time bomb.
Nothing is more useless in developing a nation's economy than a gun, and nothing blocks the road to social development more than the financial burden of war. War is the arch enemy of national progress and the modern scourge of civilized men.
At seventeen, I knew the end of a dream... I would never be a schoolboy again.
Jordan seeks to play only one role, that of a model state. It is our aim to set an example for our Arab brethren, not one that they need follow but one that will inspire them to seek a higher, happier destiny within their own borders.
All what we hope for is that a day will come, when we have all gone, when people will say that this man has tried, and his family tried. This is all there is to seek in this world.
In this life struggle, here I am among you fully cognizant that a true believer has no fear of what God has ordained for him. Those who are visited by fear live only for their present, under the illusion that the world began with them and will end with their departure.
I wish to say to you that the life of an enlightened people and a vibrant nation cannot be measured by the life of an individual. A successful person is one who manages to lay down a new stone, a brick that would help firm up his nation's existence.
I am ever mindful of the legacy of my grandfather, the founder of this Kingdom, who had said to me that he perceived his life as a link in a continuous chain of those who served our nation and that he expected me to be a new and strong link in the same chain.
Personality is reduced and deformed with depleted thoughts and stagnant mind.
I am totally against the idea that a Muslim woman should not have the same opportunities as a Muslim man to learn, to open up, to work, help shape the future. To close Islam down to a sexist approach is totally intolerable and ridiculous. It's not Islam.
We believe democracy to be the only real guarantor of stability and we have sought to create a 'Jordanian model' that might also inspire others in our region. I wish democracy and peace to be my legacy to my people and the shield of generations to come.
Under the auspices of peace, our comprehensive renaissance will be built, and it will be a model for those who wish to emulate it in the greater Arab homeland.
For our part, we shall continue to work for the new dawn when all the Children of Abraham and their descendants are living together in the birthplace of their three great monotheistic religions, a life free from fear, a life free from want - a life in peace.
I want to say a simple thing, that the dividing line exists not between Jordan and Israel, but between the proponents of peace and the opponents of peace.
Without peace and without the overwhelming majority of people that believe in peace defending it, working for it, believing in it, security can never really be a reality.
The link between peace and stability on the one hand, and social and economic growth on the other, is dialectic. Peace, poverty, and backwardness cannot mix in one region.
It would behoove the world to become used to this fact: that without a just solution to the Palestine tragedy, there can be no stable peace in the Middle East.
Our religion does not discriminate according to color, sex or anything else. What counts is piety and faith.
Fundamentalism as it is called is not confined to the Muslim world. It is something that we have seen in different parts of the world. Let us hope that a dialogue between the followers of the three great monotheistic religions could help in putting an end to this.
I will never work merely to make a reputation for myself, to be popular for appearances rather than for what I am. My task is to lead my country through service.
After all, I think Jerusalem is part of the, of the world's heritage.
I, not for the first time, would like to say that I never took a pro-Iraq position during the Gulf War.
Jordan has a very important part in any Arab-Israeli peace process.
I am pro-peace.
