"The reality is that America is afraid of my entering into America. Their court has given me their decision that for five years I cannot enter America.

"From where did this newspaper get the idea that I am hiding here…? And is this a way of hiding? Thousands of people will be coming here. Every day morning and evening news media will be here…is this a way of hiding? But that newspaper and others have convinced one bishop here, who is calling meetings of local people to protest against my stay here – and it is only two days that have passed. Last time they allowed me my whole life; only in the end they poisoned me. I don't think I can last here more than two months at the most.

"The bishop is printing a pamphlet against me to distribute. This Sunday morning he is going to speak against me. He knows nothing about me.

"There has been a protest march yesterday. Phone calls are coming that stones will be thrown at my meetings. That gives me a feeling that certainly I am in Greece, but things have changed for the worse.

"The people of Greece may not have learned in twenty-five centuries, but I have learned much. I will slip out of the poisoning. This is the way I want to be introduced to my own country.

How and why did you come to Greece?

"It is my country, and I wanted to see my people. I wanted to see whether they have grown up or still they are retarded. And I am sorry to say they have fallen far more than when I left them. The day I left them Athens was at its peak, the most intelligent, the very cream of the world. Now it is nothing. It has no importance in any area, in any dimension.

"If people had followed Socrates, if they had followed Plato, Aristotle, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Epicurus, they would have been the very crown of the world today. But rather than following Socrates, they followed those idiots who poisoned him, and they are still in the hands of the same idiots who are the cause of their degradation."