Shimon Peres

Quotations

  • “That was my first lesson from Ben-Gurion. Then I saw him making peace, and I saw him making war. He mobilized me before the war. The man was a very rare combination between a real intellectual and a born leader. There is a contradiction between the two.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “Now, I learned soon enough, that among the three, two don’t trust the third one – the third one is the government. Both industry and unions feel the government is a talking organization and a spending organization.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “In Israel, a land lacking in natural resources, we learned to appreciate our greatest national advantage: our minds. Through creativity and innovation, we transformed barren deserts into flourishing fields and pioneered new frontiers in science and technology.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “He was the editor of our paper. He created the publishing house in Hebrew. He was – I wouldn’t say the ‘guru’ – but really he was our teacher and a most respected man. I wrote for the paper of the youth movement.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “Early in the morning, I fell in love with the girl that later on became my wife. At that time, we were so naive. I wanted to charm her, so I read her Capital by Marx. I thought somehow she would be convinced by the strength of his criticism about capital.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “I think I was a good student, because I jumped over a school. My main interest was basically history and literature. Sports were basically basketball and swimming at a pool. I was so happy.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “In Israel, a land lacking in natural resources, we learned to appreciate our greatest national advantage: our minds. Through creativity and innovation, we transformed barren deserts into flourishing fields and pioneered new frontiers in science and technology.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “The older generation had greater respect for land than science. But we live in an age when science, more than soil, has become the provider of growth and abundance. Living just on the land creates loneliness in an age of globality.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “The United States is the only power in history that became great by giving and not by taking. I think the crisis was when the United States had more money than ideas. Money doesn’t produce money. Ideas produce money.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “The problem of the Middle East is poverty more than politics.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “When I am speaking about American presidents, I have to speak about my very special relations with President Clinton. He contributed more to peace than anybody else in the American sense.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “I think peace should be done not only among governments but among people. It was impossible before the Facebook.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “Early in the morning, I fell in love with the girl that later on became my wife. At that time, we were so naive. I wanted to charm her, so I read her Capital by Marx. I thought somehow she would be convinced by the strength of his criticism about capital.” -Shimon Peres

    (click to view listing)

  • “The United States is the only power in history that became great by giving and not by taking. I think the crisis was when the United States had more money than ideas. Money doesn’t produce money. Ideas produce money.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “I was learning, as I did in the Ministry of Defense. I never knew, but I always learned.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “The Jews’ greatest contribution to history is dissatisfaction! We’re a nation born to be discontented. Whatever exists we believe can be changed for the better.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “Now, I learned soon enough, that among the three, two don’t trust the third one – the third one is the government. Both industry and unions feel the government is a talking organization and a spending organization.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “What should be the future of Israel? Is the land the most important choice, and for that reason to keep the whole of the land at any cost, or to have a partition and build the Jewish state on part of the land? And the other part?” -Shimon Peres

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  • “Look, I worked with American Republican presidents and Democratic presidents, all of them, and each of them has shown a deep and profound friendship to Israel, you know? I can’t remember anybody who was in that sense negative as far as Israel is concerned.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “My heart goes out to the brave citizens of Syria, who each day risk and even sacrifice their lives to achieve freedom from a murderous regime. We in Israel welcome the historic struggle to forge democratic, peace-loving governments in our region.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “The Middle East is ailing. The malady stems from pervasive violence, shortages of food, water and educational opportunities, discrimination against women and – the most virulent cause of all – the absence of freedom.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “I worked with a group of people who argued day and night – professors, officials, the Minister of Finance – but there were decisions that I had to make.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “I call on the Iranian people: it is not too late to replace the corrupt regime and return to your glorious Persian heritage, a heritage of culture and values and not of bombs and missiles… How can a nation allow a regime to instill fear, take away the people’s freedom and shock the young generation…

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  • “Bringing an end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians may help the young Arab generation to realise their aspirations. Israel is more than willing to offer our experience in building a modern economy in spite of limited resources to the whole region.” -Shimon Peres

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  • “You know who is against democracy in the Middle East? The husbands. They got used to their way of life. Now, the traditional way of life must change. Everybody must change. If you don’t give equal rights to women, you can’t progress.” -Shimon Peres

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  • The older generation had greater respect for land than science. But we live in an age when science, more than soil, has become the provider of growth and abundance. Living just on the land creates loneliness in an age of globality. – Shimon Peres

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