King Hussein bin Talal would have turned 82-years-old today had he not lost his battle with cancer on 7 February, 1999.

The late monarch is the father of Jordan’s current ruler, King Abdullah II. At the time of his passing, King Hussein was the longest serving executive head of state in the world.

During his 47-year reign, his Majesty played a key role in initiating a peace process in Palestine and Israel.

“His Majesty was instrumental in drafting UNSC Resolution 242, which calls on Israel to withdraw from all the Arab lands it occupied in the 1967 war in exchange for peace. This resolution has served as the benchmark for all subsequent peace negotiations,” his official online biography reads.

As well as working on Arab-Israeli peace, King Hussein worked on resolving disputes between Arab states. A perfect example was his Majesty’s peace efforts during the 1990 Gulf War.

While Al Hussein Cultural Centre is marking King Hussein’s birthday with a grand celebration today, we thought we would celebrate by listing our favourite quotes by the late King.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I'm proud of what I've done in Jordan, but the region itself is sitting on a time bomb.”

“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.”

“At seventeen, I knew the end of a dream... I would never be a schoolboy again.”

“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.”

“Sometimes, leaders' failures can cost these young people's lives.”