Beji Caid Essebsi

“There is no dignity without work. You can't tell someone who has nothing to eat to stay patient.”

“The democratic process is always vulnerable and threatened by terrorists, by parties that do not believe in democracy.”

“There is no future for Tunisia without consensus among political parties and members of civil society.”

“We respect every religion. Everyone is free to practice his religion freely... In the Tunisian parliament, we have even Jews.”

“The future begins today! What is important is what we do today and tomorrow for Tunisia and all its children. We must work hand in hand.”

“To fight extremism, we will need to pursue a two-pronged strategy: both 'hard,' through stricter control of our borders and a more robust and technologically advanced security response, and 'soft,' based on better intelligence-gathering, working to return our mosques to their spiritual function and barring entry to foreign preachers.”

“The Tunisian people will not bow. We will stay united against terrorism until we wipe out this phenomenon.”

“When you are a politician, it means to work for the benefit of the country, not to stay home. In politics, it ends only when one dies.”

“I've always maintained there is no incompatibility between Islam and democracy. The Europeans in general confuse Islam and Islamism. Islamism is a political movement that instrumentalises the religion to get to power, which has nothing to do with religion. Islam here in Tunisia is a religion of openness, of tolerance.”