|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Linus Pauling
Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Peace
Linus Pauling: So far as my scientific career goes, of course, there was the decision that I made in 1945 -- '46 perhaps, but starting in 1945 -- and that may have been made by my wife rather than me, to sacrifice part of my scientific career to working for control of nuclear weapons and for the achievement of world peace. So, for years I devoted half my time, perhaps, to giving hundreds of lectures and to writing my book, No More War, but in the earlier years especially, to studying international affairs and social, political and economic theory, to the extent that it enabled me ultimately to feel that I was speaking with the same authority as when I talked about science. This is what my wife said to me back around 1946. If I wanted to be effective, I'd have to reach the point where I could speak with authority about these matters and not just quote statements that politicians and other people of that sort had made.
View Interview with Linus Pauling
View Biography of Linus Pauling
View Profile of Linus Pauling
View Photo Gallery of Linus Pauling
|
|
|
Linus Pauling
Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Peace
Trustees tried to get the institute to fire me and a committee was set up -- I didn't know about it at the time, learned only later they reported that they couldn't find a way by which I could be fired. I wasn't guilty of moral turpitude in the usual sense, which was one way in which a professor can lose his job. So they began sort of harassing me. I was chairman of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. The president said, well, that's one job they could take away from me which would mean a decrease in salary. I didn't mind. I had served in that position for 22 years and felt that I had done my duty with respect to that administrative job. But, they began interfering with my research projects and I decided that I was going to have to leave the institute.
View Interview with Linus Pauling
View Biography of Linus Pauling
View Profile of Linus Pauling
View Photo Gallery of Linus Pauling
|
|
|
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.
View Interview with Shimon Peres
View Biography of Shimon Peres
View Profile of Shimon Peres
View Photo Gallery of Shimon Peres
|
|
|
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.
View Interview with Shimon Peres
View Biography of Shimon Peres
View Profile of Shimon Peres
View Photo Gallery of Shimon Peres
|
|
|
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.
View Interview with Sidney Poitier
View Biography of Sidney Poitier
View Profile of Sidney Poitier
View Photo Gallery of Sidney Poitier
|
|
|
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.
View Interview with Sidney Poitier
View Biography of Sidney Poitier
View Profile of Sidney Poitier
View Photo Gallery of Sidney Poitier
|
|
|
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.
View Interview with Sidney Poitier
View Biography of Sidney Poitier
View Profile of Sidney Poitier
View Photo Gallery of Sidney Poitier
|
| |
|
