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Linus Pauling
Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Peace
I had one short course in organic chemistry, but I'm considered to have made great contributions to organic chemistry. I had no courses in biochemistry, but I'm usually described as "the great biochemist Linus Pauling." You see, I have made contributions to biochemistry. There were no courses in molecular biology. I had no courses in biology, but I'm one of the founders of molecular biology. I had no courses in nutrition or vitaminology. Why? Why am I able to do these things? You see, I got such a good basic education in the fields where it's difficult for most people to learn by themselves. Very few people are able to study mathematics by themselves, they need to have it taught. I learned a lot of mathematics, a lot of physics, a lot of chemistry. The chemistry, much of it I might have learned by myself, but when it comes to these other subjects, I was able to learn enough about these other fields just by reading because my basic understanding was so great that I could interpret the sentences that I read. I can read -- if I become interested in cardiology say, or in general -- I can read books, medical books about heart disease and understand what the authors are saying.
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Shimon Peres
President of Israel
When I was a young man in Israel, our major goal ideologically and otherwise was to become farmers, members of a kibbutz. So I joined in a youth movement that sent me to an agricultural school where I got my main education. There, we organized a small nucleus of boys and girls to go and build a kibbutz, and we went to build a kibbutz, but while doing all this, at school and later on at the kibbutz, there was a great debate taking place in Israel on two major issues. One, who represents the world of tomorrow? The Socialists? The Communists? The Soviet Union, or the democracy, the free world? And what actually does stem from our ideology?
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Shimon Peres
President of Israel
Later on at school, because of my views, I decided to go to Ben Shemen, which is an agricultural school. So I left my studies in Tel Aviv, and I went over to an entirely new life again, living in the fields, among trees, among flowers, milking the cows, riding a horse. Again, it was a different world, but this was really not only a school, but a village of youngsters. So we were running our lives there too, and that's where I believe I got my first taste for social life. And we had different groups, for literature, for ideology, for culture, and as I told you, we made a small nucleus to go to the kibbutz. It was an intimate group. All of us were supposed to tell the truth. We ran a collective dairy. We were 15 or 16, young boys and girls, and the kibbutz was our ideal, it was our destination. But the school, the village, is surrounded by Arabs, and they were shooting at us. So at that same age, I swore into the Haganah, and they are an underground organization. Having the Bible on the table, having a pistol, having a candle. It was a clandestine organization at the time.
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Shimon Peres
President of Israel
Everybody at that time almost totally identified with the country, with the war, with the need to win, and that went on after the War of Independence. When the war was over, I found out that I'm so ignorant. I didn't know a single word of English. Literally, nothing whatsoever. And I hardly have had any formal education. So I came to Ben-Gurion, who was my mentor, and I told him, "Look, I can't go on like this. I have to learn something." I thought I wanted to go to the United States for study. So then, he nominated me to be the head of the Defense Ministry mission in America, in New York, and I worked during the day. I studied, in the evening, at night, at a wonderful school, the New School for Social Research.
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Sidney Poitier
Oscar for Best Actor
One of the preparations I decided was essential to my survival was I had to learn to read. I really had to learn to read. I could read third grade level, fourth grade level. As I told you, I left school at the age of 12-and-a-half. I then decided that I have to learn to read well and I went about that process. That I knew was my goal. The reason was, I realized that in New York there were many streets. Some were numbered, but not all. Some were named. And three syllables, I had great problems with pronouncing three syllables. And every word that had three, four syllables in it, it staggered me. I mean it just defeated me. So I decided that I had to learn to read better because all of the information necessary for my survival came to me, would come to me in words.
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