Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" As president, I was more successful; I had more opportunity than as prime minister. Why? I didn't have the power to give orders, to command, but I had the opportunity to call people to volunteer. In my period of presidency, I never heard the word 'no.' "

Related Quotes:

" 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

Science

Technology

Innovation

" In order to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear country you have to introduce a system of verification and inspection. "

" Israel's doors are open to collaboration with Bulgaria. "

" When I was a child, Israel was a legend more than a reality. She emerged from a dream, and today she has surpassed that dream. "

" There was one occasion when I was very young - eight years or seven years old - that Jewish businessmen went through the forest, and they were assassinated. And that was for the first time I saw in our paper where there were assassinations in our place. "

" He taught me literature, and he actually taught me how to read. He was my personal mentor. "

Shimon Peres

Personal

Literature

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The signing of the Israel-PLO accord is more than a political milestone. It is a transformative event which touches every Jewish family - physically, emotionally, spiritually. "

Shimon Peres

Political

Jewish

" And in England there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment. They abstained in the 1947 UN partition resolution... They maintained an arms embargo against us in the 1950s... They always worked against us. They think the Arabs are the underdogs. "

Shimon Peres

Think

Against

" I have a brother younger than me. My mother was a librarian, so from her, I got the taste to read. "

Shimon Peres

Brother

Her

" They thought that I was a man with reasonable judgment, so I was never under pressure from my parents; I could do whatever I wanted. I never had a negative word from them, nothing whatsoever. "

" For me, dreaming is simply being pragmatic. "

Shimon Peres

Pragmatic

Simply

" In the Middle East, the conflict today is a matter of generations and not of cultures. "

" The present Arab uprising didn't stem from Israel. The old guard is trying to keep down the young chickens. The old guard is better organized. They may win elections, but unless they have a solution to poverty, to corruption, to oppression, they will not last. I am with the young people. "

" David Ben-Gurion was a mythic figure, the founding father of Israel and a modern-day prophet, but he was also a real man who stormed through history on human legs. It was my great privilege to know him and work with him for many years. "

" A politician and a government should be judged by one way only: on the record of what you do or did, not on what you say. "

" It is not rifles but people who triumph, and the conclusion from all the wars is that we need better people, not better rifles - to win wars, and mainly to avoid them. "

" 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? "

" I dreamed of a future as a muscular, tanned, kibbutznik, who plowed the fertile fields of the Jezreel Valley in the day, sang religiously in the dining hall in the evening, and fiercely guarded the farmland at night, riding a noble horse. "

" When you have two alternatives, the first thing you have to do is to look for the third that you didn't think about, that doesn't exist. "

" From my earliest youth, I have known that while one is obliged to plan with care the stages of one's journey, one is entitled to dream, and keep dreaming, of its destination. A man may feel as old as his years yet as young as his dreams. "

" If you have children, you cannot feed them forever with flags for breakfast and cartridges for lunch. You need something more substantial. Unless you educate your children and spend less money on conflicts, unless you develop your science, technology and industry, you don't have a future. "

" We have to stand together against terror and the reasons for terrorism, which are poverty and ignorance. "

" I have the highest respect for Obama. I have worked with 10 American presidents, both Republicans and Democrats. As far as Israeli security is concerned, he has done the most that an American president can do. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" You know when civilization began? With the invention of the mirror. "

" 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. "