Maybe the future of Syria will not be a presidential system where one person will have all the power, so, the discussion about who should and should not rule Syria will become irrelevant. Let the Syrian people decide.
Mohammad Javad ZarifRead
If you look at the developments in the international scene over the past many years, we haven't been able to resolve many problems and many crises, because we have approached them from a zero-sum perspective. My gain has always been defined as somebody else's loss, and through that, we never resolve problems.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that a zero-sum perspective hinders conflict resolution.
In this quote, Mohammad Javad Zarif highlights that viewing international issues as one party's gain equating to another's loss leads to persistent problems and unresolved crises. This zero-sum mindset restricts cooperation and mutual benefit, suggesting that true progress can only be achieved by shifting toward more collaborative approaches that recognize the interconnectedness of global challenges.
In practice
In a speech about international diplomacy, one could reference this quote to illustrate the importance of cooperation over competition.
Maybe the future of Syria will not be a presidential system where one person will have all the power, so, the discussion about who should and should not rule Syria will become irrelevant. Let the Syrian people decide.
It is one of the sternest judgments confronting a human being after death that insofar as he is himself evil, he can see only what resembles himself because he can reproduce in his own being only the physiognomy of other evil people.
We owe much to the fruitful meditation of our sages, but a sane view of life is, after all, elaborated mainly in the kitchen.
If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse. And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humored these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible.
There was nothing postracial about my experience, and there still isn't.
A man screaming is not a dancing bear. Life is not a spectacle.
In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable way - in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.
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