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.
He altered the image of the Jew from that of rabbi merchant wanderer to that of scientist farmer and soldier.
You can kill a body, but you cannot kill the great and noble idea of peace.
When it comes to the Sunnis and Shiites, it is not for the United States or for us or for anyone else to settle who was the heir of Muhammad. This is a Muslim and Arab problem, and they have to deal with it.
My goal in life was to serve my people, and the most important service for the Jewish people is building the land, and the basics of building the people and the country is working the land.
My family's dream, and my own, was to live in Israel, and our eventual voyage to the port of Jaffa was like making a dream come true. Had it not been for this dream and this voyage, I would probably have perished in the flames, as did so many of my people, among them most of my own family.
I thought all my life that optimists and pessimists pass away the same way, so why be a pessimist?
I have the highest respect for Obama. I have worked with 10 American presidents, both Republicans and Democrats. As far as Israeli security is concerned, he has done the most that an American president can do.
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.
David Ben-Gurion was a mythic figure, the founding father of Israel and a modern-day prophet, but he was also a real man who stormed through history on human legs. It was my great privilege to know him and work with him for many years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In order to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear country you have to introduce a system of verification and inspection.
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.
We proved that the aggressors do not necessarily emerge as the victors, but we learned that the victors do not necessarily win peace.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you have children, you cannot feed them forever with flags for breakfast and cartridges for lunch. You need something more substantial. Unless you educate your children and spend less money on conflicts, unless you develop your science, technology and industry, you don't have a future.
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.
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.
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.
I never was after money. It never attracted me.
The signing of the Israel-PLO accord is more than a political milestone. It is a transformative event which touches every Jewish family - physically, emotionally, spiritually.
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 Jews' greatest contribution to history is dissatisfaction! We're a nation born to be discontented. Whatever exists we believe can be changed for the better.
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.
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 peace should be done not only among governments but among people. It was impossible before the Facebook.
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.
My greatest mistake is that my dreams were too small.
As president, I was more successful; I had more opportunity than as prime minister. Why? I didn't have the power to give orders, to command, but I had the opportunity to call people to volunteer. In my period of presidency, I never heard the word 'no.'
For 60 years, I was the most controversial figure in the country, and suddenly, I'm the most popular man in the land. Truth be told, I don't know when I was happier: then or now.
I have a brother younger than me. My mother was a librarian, so from her, I got the taste to read.
There is no alternative to peace. There is no sense to go to war.
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 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.
For me, dreaming is simply being pragmatic.
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.
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.
What you can do with relations is greater than what you can do with guns.
I knew that the most important thing a man has is in his head, and from a young age, I often studied the head structure of each person, hoping to crack his codes. I considered a high forehead a gift from God.
The internet, Facebook and Twitter have created mass communications and social spaces that regimes cannot control.
When I was a child, Israel was a legend more than a reality. She emerged from a dream, and today she has surpassed that dream.
I was learning, as I did in the Ministry of Defense. I never knew, but I always learned.
