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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Shimon Peres

Youth

Destination

Journey

" The wars we fought were forced upon us. Thanks to the Israel Defense Forces, we won them all, but we did not win the greatest victory that we aspired to: release from the need to win victories. "

" 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? "

" 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. "

" 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 was learning, as I did in the Ministry of Defense. I never knew, but I always learned. "

" Poverty and ignorance, which beget terror, are not eradicated by firing artillery shells. Borders do not stop rockets, and barbed wire does not prevent terror. "

" 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. "

" The uprising in Egypt was initiated by the young generation. The uprising achieved two things. One is it made the lives of dictators impossible. Today, if you are looking for a safe job, don't become a dictator. "

" Later on, there were some problems with our navy, so he made me the head of the navy - all things that I hardly knew anything about. I was basically an ignorant young man. "

Shimon Peres

Man

Navy

" Israel has its attractions. It's the most dramatic country in the world. Everybody's engaged. Everybody argues. When I leave Israel, I get a little bit bored, you know? "

" 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. "

" I never was after money. It never attracted me. "

" 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

Peace

War

" The Iranian regime suppresses its own people as well as others in the region. It prevents peace by sponsoring terror globally. With the ultimate weapon that it is deceptively developing, the regime aims to gain hegemony over the entire Middle East and hold the world's economy hostage. "

" I knew that the most important thing a man has is in his head, and from a young age, I often studied the head structure of each person, hoping to crack his codes. I considered a high forehead a gift from God. "

" 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. "

" The problem of the Middle East is poverty more than politics. "

Shimon Peres

Middle

Politics

" I learned that public service is a privilege that must be based on moral foundations. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" There is no alternative to peace. There is no sense to go to war. "

Shimon Peres

No Sense

War

" 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.' "

" One of the most important branches of the Egyptian economy is tourism. No bikinis, no tourism. So they have to decide what to do. "

" My goal in life was to serve my people, and the most important service for the Jewish people is building the land, and the basics of building the people and the country is working the land. "

" 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. "

" Israel welcomes the wind of change, and sees a window of opportunity. Democratic and science-based economies by nature desire peace. Israel does not want to be an island of affluence in an ocean of poverty. Improvements in our neighbours' lives mean improvements to the neighbourhood in which we live. "

" There is a real need to construct a different Middle East. The Middle East must change because the world has changed. And instead of oppositional armies that are fighting usually one against another, now we have a net of terrorists that are trying to destroy everything. They are not two; they are hundreds. "

" My family's dream, and my own, was to live in Israel, and our eventual voyage to the port of Jaffa was like making a dream come true. Had it not been for this dream and this voyage, I would probably have perished in the flames, as did so many of my people, among them most of my own family. "