Top 100 Shimon Peres Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres

53. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

54. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

55. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

56. “Whoever of you love life and desire to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Seek peace and pursue it.”

— Shimon Peres

57. “From the darkness of my hiding place, I would ask God to forgive the transgressors and have mercy on every man, as he himself had sown the seeds of weakness.”

— Shimon Peres

58. “If we give in to the hijackers’ demands and release terrorists,” I said during one of the heated government meetings over the coming week, “everyone will understand us, but no one will respect us.” Yet the opposite – however grim the results – held: “If, on the other hand, we conduct a military operation to free hostages, it is possible that no one will understand us – but everyone will respect us.”

— Shimon Peres

59. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

60. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

61. “When Israel was weak, I worked to make her fierce. But once she was strong, I gave my life’s efforts to peace.”

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres

64. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

65. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

66. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres

68. “Making peace is not a simple endeavor. It is a constant struggle. But its complexity should not overshadow its purpose.”

— Shimon Peres

69. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

70. “Given the thin line between success and failure, knowing that what works in one circumstance might be disastrous in another, what do such operations have to teach us? It’s certainly not that daring military action is or isn’t the better course; it’s that daring thinking about one’s options is always the better course.”

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres

73. “In every war, there are always elements of blindness.”

— Shimon Peres

74. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres

77. “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?”

— Shimon Peres

78. “It’s a morality that keeps humans human.”

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres

80. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres

82. “We spoke often of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, who argued that the future of the Jewish people depended on the existence of a Jewish state, one bonded together not just by religion but by language and nationality. “Let them give us sovereignty over a piece of the earth’s surface, just sufficient for the needs of our people. Then we will do the rest.”

— Shimon Peres

83. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

84. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

85. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

86. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

87. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

88. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

89. “It was not me that changed; it was the situation that changed.”

— Shimon Peres

90. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

91. “It is the leap from the age of territory to the age of science.”

— Shimon Peres

92. “Historic justice has been done by killing Saddam.”

— Shimon Peres

93. “Israel’s doors are open to collaboration with Bulgaria.”

— Shimon Peres

94. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres

96. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

97. “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

98. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

99. “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.”

— Shimon Peres

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

— Shimon Peres