Shimon Peres Quotes That Are diplomatic, visionary and innovative

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

Iran is a great problem, but not necessarily a great country.

In fact, I think it is a very weak country.

In many ways, the media today makes dictatorship impossible.

But it also makes democracy intolerable.

[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.

In any democratic country you have more than one view.

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.

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

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)

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.

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

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

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.

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

[Hamas] lives on their rifles and bombs.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Historic justice has been done by killing Saddam.

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

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

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.

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.

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.