Shimon peres quotes

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.

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

Iran is a great problem, but not necessarily a great country. In fact, I think it is a very weak country.

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 that seeks its way out of the dictatorial Iran.

Most of the Palestinians don't understand what they're doing... Politically, people can say what they want. The problem is not political, but religious.

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.

I cannot go to elections with an open stomach. If you want to negotiate we have to conclude it before the elections. I cannot just start the negotiations [with Palestinians] saying we are ready to do this and that and not having any reply.

I don't think for example that the Indians look at [what is right and what is wrong] that way [the Palestinians do]. There are a billion, 200 million people in that part of the world. Why? They suffer from terror. People that do not suffer from it don't understand what I'm talking about, you know?

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.

Terrorists and murderers are so dangerous. We shouldn't fall victim to believe that they are immune.

Democracy wants to win by reason, not by arms or by any other material damage, because, look, I don't have to remind you that I am totally for peace. It is my greatest dream. It was and will remain so.

If world is suspicious that Israel may detonate nuclear bomb and if the suspicion is a deterrent - that's good enough.

We are the only country who is an ally of the United States that never asked for American soldiers.

I will confine myself to reaffirming the Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the region.

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.

A solution of two national states - a Jewish state, Israel; an Arab state, Palestine. The Palestinians are our closest neighbors. I believe they may become our closest friends.

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.

You're as young as your dreams, not as old as your calendar

Without freedom you cannot have real peace.

You can kill a thousand; you can bring an end to life; you cannot kill an idea.

Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable.

Hamas married the Iranians. It was their choice. They are the same family.

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.

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.

You don't make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.

In many ways, the media today makes dictatorship impossible. But it also makes democracy intolerable.

President Abbas and myself, we are the ones who signed the Oslo agreement, so we really know each other, not just theoretically.

In the past, most wars were motivated by the idea of nationhood. Today, however, wars are incited above all using religion as an excuse.

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.

The Holocaust is a great warning to us all. We shall never forget our sisters and brothers. We have to ensure it is not repeated and to ensure we never go back to the days when humans behaved as beasts. Forgetfulness is a menace, we must remember.

Any assassination is an assassination. It's cold, it's terrible. I'm against any capital punishment. Only the Lord has the right to take away life because he's the giver of life. And assassination stands against democracy, against civilization, against a civilized life of people. Alas, the situation in Lebanon is very chaotic and many innocent people lost their lives because they have a state within a state, an army within an army and the respect for life is not high enough.

We asked the workers to give up 25 percent of their salaries. Imagine! We asked the industrialists to freeze all costs, no matter what the inflation is.

We had a lot of support - don't give me "the world", just the televisions. In America we enjoy support,China is neutral, India is for, in Europe they're divided.

It's a morality that keeps humans human.

I think today you can move ahead working with global companies more than with national governments.

In every war, there are always elements of blindness.

I am a president who also gives pardons. Usually my considerations are humane.

I've worked with 10 presidents. It's a record. I worked with Republicans and Democrats. All of them when it came to Israel were, movingly, friendly. From Truman, who was the first to recognize Israel 11 minutes after the U.N. resolution, to Obama. When it comes to the major issues of security and strategy, we are together, completely.

Israel's doors are open to collaboration with Bulgaria.

We checked carefully the international law - what does a nation do when terrorists are using civilians to defend their life, as a shelter. And they say you do not have a choice.

I believe that peace with the Palestinians is most urgent - urgent than ever before. It is necessary. It is crucial. It is possible. A delay may worsen its chances. Israel and the Palestinians are, in my judgment, ripe today to restart the peace process.

The foes now are universal - poverty, famine, religious radicalization, desertification, drugs, proliferation of nuclear weapons, ecological devastation. They threaten all nations, just as science and information are the potential friends of all nations. Classical diplomacy and strategy were aimed at identifying enemies and confronting them. Now they have to identify dangers, global or local, and tackle them before they become disasters.

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

We should use our imagination more than our memory.

One of the things the United States does well is building coalitions. What the U.S. knows is that if you don't have a coalition with you, you will have a coalition against you. I don't want to see China and Russia on the side of Iran more strongly than they are.

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

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.

I don't think anybody who carries a rifle carries the future. Because I don't believe that you can really change the world by killing and shooting. You have the change it by creating and competing.

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.

[Hamas] lives on their rifles and bombs.

Today, Israel is stronger than ever. Israel has defensive tools of its own - those developed in the past and those developed today and those that will be developed tomorrow.

Some experts advise what to do in accordance with the past, but the past flew away, and we have to reorient ourselves in the face of new dangers.

Why cross and ocean when you can cross a river? Why should we sail to Washington when we can meet right away 10 miles from here?

We have to take care about nature as much as nature is taking care about us. Nature is very kind with us. And if you want to enjoy the gifts of nature and the promises of nature, we have to defer to nature and its needs, its rules, its norms.

If you eat three times a day, you become fat. If you read three times a day, you become wise. It's better to be wise than fat.

I am leaving the office but am not leaving the battle for peace.

Look, Israel doesn't intend to introduce nuclear weapons, but if people are afraid that we have them, why not? It's a deterrent.

What is wrong with the Iranians in addition to the nuclear bomb? This is the only country on Earth in the 21st century that has renewed imperialistic ambitions. They really want to become the hegemon of the Middle East in an age that gave up imperialism.

In any democratic country you have more than one view.

Israel was born under the British mandate. We learned from the British what democracy means, and how it behaves in a time of danger, war and terror. We thank Britain for introducing freedom and respect of human rights both in normal and demanding circumstances.

Leading the Jewish people is not easy -- we are a divided, obstinate, highly individualistic people who have cultivated faith, sharp wittedness and polemics to a very high level.

Governments are based on power, companies are based on goodwill, which allows them to invest in the future.

Optimists and pessimists die the exact same death, but they live very different lives!

And this would normalize the existence of the Israeli and the Jew: a majority of Jews in the Land of Israel and a majority of Israelis among the Jewish People.

The minute you try to threaten and use boycotts I think it is outside the democratic perception.

Look, we have existed for 4,000 years - 2,000 years in diaspora, in exile. Nobody in the Middle East speaks their original language but Israel. When we started 64 years ago, we were 650,000 people. So, you know, we are maybe swimming a little bit against the stream, but we continue to swim.

Historic justice has been done by killing Saddam.

To find a cause that's larger than yourself and then to give your life to it.

I think peace should be done not only among governments but among people. It was impossible before the Facebook.

Many Syrians understand that the only option that exists is the option of peace, which means the option of compromise, .. Nobody can have 100 percent of his desires. He must compromise.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's better to be controversial for the right reasons, than to be popular for the wrong reasons.

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

Our problem is not to submit to the differences but to overcome them.

When it becomes a bloody reality, we have to come together and look at what can be done to return to the order of peace, ... There is no alternative to it.

Can any church help us to win a war? If you can't help us win a war, then please don't press us.

We have to be reasonable people.

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.

Bulgaria is a true friend of Israel, that stood up to save the Jewish people 70 years ago in Europe, and who stood by throughout the terror attack that took place in Burgas last July.

Israel is moving from the realm of poetry to the realm of prose.

For me, dreaming is simply being pragmatic.

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

I joined the army as a private. I was offered a rank at that time, but I refused. I preferred to remain a private. First of all, I wasn't taken by ranks, and before I knew it, they put me in the most sensitive positions anyway.

Germany and Israel should dream together for a Middle East in which all the countries are willing to exchange the dispute of the parents with peace for their children.

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

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 read when I get up in the morning, when I can during the day and every single evening. Most of my weekends are spent reading great books. Books are my constant companions. If you eat three times a day you'll be fed. But if you read three times a day you'll be wise.

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.

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.

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

For many years the stakes were clear. There were the Arabs attacking us and us defending ourselves, so basically there were no real problems [between the United States and Israel]. Now there are many small cells, and each of them can destroy on their own. Some can arrive at New York and kill thousands of people.

If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact - not to be solved, but to be coped with over time.

Nothing had excited me-the huge cars, the entourages, the bodyguards, the policeman jumping to attention, all meant nothing to me ... till I came to the old man's office. (On becoming prime minister)

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

Polls are like perfume-nice to smell, dangerous to swallow.

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.

The most important thing in life is to dare. The most complicated thing in life is to be afraid. The smartest thing in the world is to try to be a moral person.

The history of Israel is divided into two parts. One, under attack that we have had to defend ourselves. When you defend yourself your thinking is totally different from when you want to make peace. So under attack you behave like if you want a hawk, when peace comes you become a dove.

There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary.

The Middle East is replete with both new and old threats. One should not underestimate these threats, but not be alarmed by them either. Israel is stronger today than ever.

I don't know what is stronger or what is weaker.The whole language of strength and weaknesses is irrelevant,because when you use arms you do not use ballots, and public opinion is unimportant, and they shoot at their opponents.

Peace with the Palestinians will open ports of peace all around the Mediterranean. The duty of leaders is to pursue freedom ceaselessly, even in the face of hostility, in the face of doubt and disappointment. Just imagine what could be.

Until the Yom Kippur War, in 1973, until then Israel didn't have a chance but to fight for her life. We were attacked five times, outgunned, outnumbered, on a small piece of land, and our main challenge was to remain alive.

Palestinians are becoming religiously fanatic. Israel is becoming irrelevant. They do it for religious purpose, fanatic, they want to conquer the Middle East under the command of the Iranians.

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.

Israel is a start-up nation, and I think it can be done in other places. I will do it outside the government. I don't need the government.

The president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map.

Governments have budgets but no money, companies have money but no budgets.

The internet, Facebook and Twitter have created mass communications and social spaces that regimes cannot control.

[Hamas] thought that if you go to elections you become a democrat for the rest of your life. They think that democracy is limited to one day in four years.

I do not know anybody that is threatening Iran. It is a safe country.