Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Quotes: 73 Powerful Sayings by Dubai’s Ruler

HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s most quoted lines include ‘Impossible is a word used by some people who fear to dream big,’ ‘The race for excellence has no finish line’ and ‘They say the sky is the limit for ambition. We say: the sky is only the beginning.’ They come from his books My Vision and Flashes of Thought and his posts on X, and they centre on leadership, ambition and Dubai’s long-term vision.

The quote reads: ‘Impossible is a word used by some people who fear to dream big.’ It is the single most searched Sheikh Mohammed line among UAE residents. He uses it to explain fast-tracked Dubai projects that outside experts once called impossible, among them the 828-metre Burj Khalifa and the Palm Jumeirah. The wider point is that ambition, not resources, sets the ceiling for a nation.

He opens his 2006 book My Vision with an African parable: every morning a gazelle must outrun the fastest lion or perish, and a lion must outrun the slowest gazelle or starve, so ‘it does not matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes up, you had better start running.’ Sheikh Mohammed applies it to Dubai, where everyone must run to keep pace. It is now his shorthand for the city’s culture of speed.

In a September 2012 series of posts on X, HH Sheikh Mohammed said ‘a leader cannot lead from behind’ and that leaders belong in the field. He made it literal by ordering doors removed from Dubai government offices so officials worked in the open. He also said ‘a great leader creates more great leaders and does not reduce the institution to a single person.’ His leadership quotes reward presence, humility and thanking the team.

One of his most shared patriotic lines is from the UAE’s 50th anniversary: ‘Fifty years ago, we had a dream of building a state, a home, a united people, a homeland for all. What appeared as an unattainable dream has today emerged as a proud, strong homeland, one that is secure and invincible.’ On National Day he adds that the people themselves are ‘the foundation of our country’ and ‘the creators of its success.’

On 8 December 2018, the day a decree raised women to 50% of the Federal National Council, he posted ‘women are half of our society: they should be represented as such.’ In November 2021, after the UAE topped Gallup’s Global Law and Order index, he added ‘if a woman wanders alone at any hour of the day or night without fear, know that she is in the Emirates.’ In Flashes of Thought he writes that the right environment lets women ‘perform nothing short of miracles.’

Use the prompt maker tool near the top of this page. Pick a theme, choose a quote and select a style such as a luxury black and gold poster, a Burj Khalifa wallpaper, a phone wallpaper, an Instagram card or Arabic calligraphy. The tool writes a complete prompt with the quote and style built in, which you copy and paste into an AI image generator like ChatGPT, Gemini or Midjourney to create and download the image.

The viral ‘my grandfather rode a camel’ passage belongs to his father, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, who told the camel anecdote around 1988. The ‘hard times create strong men’ lines often attached to it come from a 2016 novel, Those Who Remain by G. Michael Hopf, and not from any Maktoum ruler. Fact-checks by AAP and Misbar confirm the mix-up. Authentic quotes trace to his books or his verified account on X.

Sheikh Mohammed has written three main books: My Vision: Challenges in the Race for Excellence (2006), Flashes of Thought (2013), a collection of reflections on leadership and government, and My Story: 50 Memories from 50 Years of Service (2018). All three are available in Arabic and English through UAE bookshops and online retailers. His speeches, columns and daily reflections also sit on his official website, sheikhmohammed.ae, and on his account on X.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, a role he has held since 4 January 2006. Born in Dubai in 1949, he is a nabati-style Arabic poet, an endurance rider and the founder of Godolphin, the global horse-racing operation. He writes the books My Vision, Flashes of Thought and My Story, and posts regularly to more than 9.71 million followers on X.