Daily Inspiration Quote by Shimon Peres

Peres is selling a kind of political alchemy: the ability to conjure a “third option” precisely when reality feels locked into a binary. In a region and a career defined by existential either-ors - war or surrender, security or peace, occupation or chaos - he treats the two-alternatives frame as the first lie leaders tell themselves. The line works because it’s paradoxical without being cute. He asks you to hunt for something “that doesn’t exist,” making imagination sound like an obligation, not a luxury.

The subtext is a critique of fatalism disguised as practical advice. “Two alternatives” is how crises bully decision-makers into acting like accountants of inevitability. Peres, the architect of long-shot diplomacy and incremental agreements, is arguing that statesmanship is partly an anti-binary discipline: you change the menu by refusing to order from it. That’s also a self-portrait. His brand of leadership leaned on process, backchannels, and phased commitments - ways of creating room where none appears on the map.

Context matters: this isn’t a TED-style celebration of creativity; it’s a survival tactic in high-stakes negotiation. The “third” might be a ceasefire corridor, a mutual recognition formula, a delayed referendum, a security guarantee that lets each side claim a win. Calling it nonexistent is not mysticism; it’s a reminder that political realities are manufactured, then hardened into “facts.” Peres urges leaders to re-enter the manufacturing stage before the facts calcify.