Quotes from Shimon Peres

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

When I am speaking about American presidents, I have to speak about my very special relations with President Clinton. He contributed more to peace than anybody else in the American sense.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

He altered the image of the Jew from that of rabbi, merchant, wanderer, to that of scientist, farmer and soldier.

He restored the Bible to its people, he restored the people to the Bible.

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.

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)

We should use our imagination more than our memory.

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.

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.

When a friend makes a mistake, the friend remains a friend, and the mistake remains a mistake".

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

There are two things that cannot be achieved in life unless you close your eyes a little bit. And that's love and peace. If you want perfection you won't obtain either of them.

If you have more dreams than achievements-you're young.

If an expert says it can't be done, get another expert.

Far too often, especially under stress (and few things could have been more stressful than the Entebbe crisis), we turn inward and close down. Believing that distraction is the greatest danger, our analysis simplifies in hope of increasing not the odds of success, necessarily, but the chance we will be certain about what the outcome will be.