The Most Precious Diamond in the World

I’ve told you before that Agha Bozorg had a Cadillac. He loved it, always cleaning it and looking after it. One day I asked, “Agha Bozorg, is this a very expensive car?” “No, son, but it’s very valuable to me.” “Are there more expensive ones?” “Oh yes. Much more.” “What’s the most expensive thing in the world, Agha Bozorg? Who owns it?” Standing beside his car, he looked at me and said, “The most precious diamond in the world is integrity. Its price is greater than a person’s life.” “So you can’t buy it?” “Not from someone who truly has it. But someone who only pretends to have it might sell it for as little as a sack of potatoes! “You also asked who has it. Anyone whose name warms your heart, someone you can rely on and trust to keep their word, carries that diamond within them. Anyone who fights bravely for their homeland has it.” “Does my mom have it?” “Well said, son. A mother is the very picture of integrity.” My compatriot, my friend, a part of my own flesh: integrity is the world’s most precious and beautiful diamond. The Koh-i-Noor and Darya-i-Noor diamonds are worth nothing beside it. When a country has the Black Diamond, the Koh-i-Noor, and thousands of other jewels but has lost its Shah, you can see for yourselves what condition it is in. You, yes, you, are a beautifully cut diamond for our Iran. Guard the diamond of your integrity a thousand times more fiercely than your life. Long live Iran. Long live integrity. Long live the Shah.