Shimon Peres
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.
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.
We have to stand together against terror and the reasons for terrorism, which are poverty and ignorance.
I never was after money. It never attracted me.
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 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.
I felt that if I could make the world better for the young, that would be the greatest thing we can do.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Today, the people are governing the governments. And when they begin to talk to each other, they are surprised, they can be friends. Why should we hate each other?
Israel's doors are open to collaboration with Bulgaria.
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.
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.
Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable.
He taught me literature, and he actually taught me how to read. He was my personal mentor.
I have a brother younger than me. My mother was a librarian, so from her, I got the taste to read.
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.
If I tax them, in fact, I'm not taxing the capitalists, I am taxing the people who have saved, trusted. It was very controversial, those sorts of things. But finally, it worked out.
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.
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.
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.
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?
When I look at the record of President Obama concerning the major issue security I think it's a highly satisfactory record from Israeli point of view.
In order to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear country you have to introduce a system of verification and inspection.
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 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.
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.
I didn't plan to be a politician. The founder of our country, David Ben-Gurion, called me from the kibbutz to serve in the underground. We were short of manpower, short of arms. I was 24 years old. I was supposed to serve my country for one or two years. I am 89 years old this year, and I keep going.
The internet, Facebook and Twitter have created mass communications and social spaces that regimes cannot control.
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 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.
The problem of the Middle East is poverty more than politics.
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.
In the Middle East, the conflict today is a matter of generations and not of cultures.
There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary.
One of the most important branches of the Egyptian economy is tourism. No bikinis, no tourism. So they have to decide what to do.
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.Collection: Fear
Optimists and pessimists die the exact same death, but they live very different lives!Collection: Life
You're as young as your dreams, not as old as your calendarCollection: Dream
It's better to be controversial for the right reasons, than to be popular for the wrong reasons.Collection: Controversial
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.Collection: Mistake
We should use our imagination more than our memory.Collection: Peace
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.Collection: Wise
To find a cause that's larger than yourself and then to give your life to it.Collection: Giving
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.Collection: War
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.Collection: Wise
Our problem is not to submit to the differences but to overcome them.Collection: Differences