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Shimon Peres
President of Israel
Intellectuals are very slow to make up their minds, and even when they do it, they leave some room for skepticism and question. Not Ben-Gurion. He was never an intellectual bachelor. The minute he knew something, he has had an opinion. He was married with an opinion! But his talents were outstanding. I never saw a man with such a powerful memory like him. I can tell you stories upon stories to the depth and outstanding quality of him. He was a person that was always curious, learning, reading. There wasn't a day without him reading. He learned new languages, including ancient Greek. He was curious, for example, about Buddhism. I'm not so sure that they could understand him, because of this tendency to decide. Buddhism is not necessarily a religion made of decisions. On the other hand, he was a leader. Namely, he was decisive, had a strong will. Fearless, honest, and he all the time thought that the greatest degree of wisdom is the moral code. "Never be cynical. Never forget that every war is being fought twice -- once in the battlefield and then in the books of history." Don't forget the books of history. Don't do things that history will never forgive you. History means posterity, and it's the young generation.
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Shimon Peres
President of Israel
I learned again that if I wanted to do something, I have to show that the government is serious. Not by declaring, and not by preaching, but by cutting. And I knew that unless we should cut very deeply our budget, we don't stand a chance to have the other two parties. Now, cutting is easier said than done. Every minister, when you cut him, thinks that you have something against him. They took it very personally -- the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Education and the Minister of Social Welfare. And they were my friends, and I have to become, all of a sudden, very cruel. So finally, we had the Cabinet session that lasted for 36 hours, uninterrupted, and they took a knife and sit personally and cut their budgets from $100,000 and up. If the poor minister would close his eyes, I would take my knife. But anyway, by the end of the session, it was cut, and people were fired. I thought the whole nation would be against me, but strangely enough, the reaction of the people was unbelievable. My popularity jumped to 90 percent or whatever it was.
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Sidney Poitier
Oscar for Best Actor
I went to Marty, and I said -- Marty Baum, the agent who put me on to it. -- I said, "I read the script, and I can't play it." And he said, "Why can't you play it?" I said, "I can't play it because this is a father, and he has a child, and these guys kill his child to intimidate him. And the script permits that intimidation. So the writers feel that that's just for them a plot line. You know? It's not important to them." And I said to him, I said, "I can't play that, because I have a father. And I know that my father would never be like that. He would never under any circumstances be like that." I said, "As a father, I would never be able to not attack those guys, do something to show how I am, to articulate me as a human being." And he says, "That's why you don't want to do it?" And I said, "That's why." He says, "You need money?" And I did. My second daughter was about to be born, and I needed the money. I really needed it, and the money was $750 for playing this part, which was a lot of bucks.
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Sidney Poitier
Oscar for Best Actor
Anyway, I couldn't do it. Now, that speaks of who I was. It still speaks of who I was. And it speaks of who I am. But who I am is my father's son. That's who I am. And I spent my life with him until I left him at the age of 15. And I've seen him behave with my mother and their children. And I've seen him with my mother, how he treats her. I grew up on that. I know how to be a decent human being. So I couldn't play it, and I didn't play it. I left Marty's office, and I went to 57th Street. Yes, 57th Street and Broadway. There was a loan office there called something-something finance that you could go in and borrow money on your furniture, on your car or whatever. I needed $75 to pay Beth Israel Hospital for the birth of my child. And I had to put up my furniture, such as it was. And they loaned me that money. I paid Beth Israel Hospital, and my baby was born.
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Sidney Poitier
Oscar for Best Actor
I hit the age of 15 not being afraid. I was on my own in New York City at the age of 15. I was respectful to people. As my father explained to me, to elders you say "sir" if it is a man. To elders you say "ma'am" if it is a woman. You respect older people. I learned from him a certain way of behavior. But what I learned was not in terms of something I got out of a book. What I learned was an internal connectedness to life, in the family, in the small community where we lived, how people treated each other, particularly how my father treated his friends and my mother, you see. So I came at 15 to Miami, Florida with a sense of that humanity. That is why I am sitting in this chair now. All of what I feel about life, I had to find a way in my work to be faithful to it, to be respectful of it. I couldn't and still can't play a scene, I cannot play a scene that I don't find the texture of humanity in the material. I can't.
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Colin Powell
Former Secretary of State, United States of America
Colin Powell: One night after working on the house, I tried to buy a hamburger at a drive-in place in Columbus. I knew I couldn't go in, I didn't try to go in, I just tried to order it on the little speaker box for it to be brought out. The young lady came out to take my order, the way it was done in those days, and she looked in the car and she asked me if I was Puerto Rican, and I said "No." And then she asked me if I was an African student studying at the Infantry School. I said, "No, I'm not an African student studying at the Infantry School, I'm an American." And she said, "I'm terribly sorry, but I can't bring it out to the car, you'll have to get out and go around to the back." And I said, "Thank you very much, no thanks," and I drove off.
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Colin Powell
Former Secretary of State, United States of America
Colin Powell: Well, Washington is a battlefield in and all its own. As you become more senior in the military, you really do have to have an understanding - to be successful - of how the political process works and how to deal with public relations, and how to convey the story of the armed forces to the American people. The political process and the media are two things you really do have to master. Not because you want to be a spinmeister, but because the political process is how the country runs, that's how democracies run. So you have to know how to go up and testify on Capitol Hill and satisfy members of the House and Senate as to how you're planning to spend the money which the Constitution gives them the authority to appropriate every year. You've got to do it every year, whether you like it or not. You have to expect to be punched around a little bit, challenged. You have to expect people will want to spend less money than you want. And you have to expect to hear parochial constituent interest from individual congressman, because that's why they were elected, to represent parochial constituent interests. And that's all part of the process. You have to understand that the media is out to find anything about you that you don't want them to know. That's their role in the democracy. They are the fourth estate. And your responsibility is to tell the American people as much as you can about what you're doing with their sons and daughters and their money. But you're also supposed to protect their sons and daughters, and so there may be things you don't want to tell the media. And so there's this great contest that takes place, but it's a healthy contest. Any senior general or admiral who doesn't understand that you have to do this isn't going to be very successful. You can't just rant and rave at the political process, or be mad because The Washington Post or The New York Times said something unpleasant about you that day. You've just got to keep doing your job to the best of your ability. To some extent, it's war in a different way. Politics is war, without bullets and shells -- usually.
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