Dan Shechtman

“The message from the Technion when I was a student was: 'You will be so good that when you graduate, everyone will want to hire you.'”

“I can unite the people of Israel, so I won't speak about controversial issues, which divide the people.”

“Let us advance science to create a better world for all.”

“The Technion didn't teach students how to open a start-up.”

“A president should look for what binds the people together rather than what drives them apart. As soon as you are identified with one side of the political map, you are no longer everybody's president.”

“Colleges will try to get the good students. That's the way to go. When I chaired my department of Materials Engineering at the Technion in 1990, we started a program for which we set the bar very high. It was the highest at the Technion, above electrical engineering and medicine.”

“As far as innovation goes, I can tell you that Korean students are reluctant to step out of line. If I ask questions, nobody raises their hands - not because they don't know the answers, but because they don't want to step out of line.”

“My childhood dream was to study mechanical engineering. After reading 'The Mysterious Island' - which I read 25 times as a boy - I thought that was the best thing a person could do. The engineer in the book knows mechanics and physics, and he creates a whole way of life on the island out of nothing. I wanted to be like that.”

“I fell in love with science and decided to continue for my Ph.D., and from there on, I was a scientist.”

“Wherever I go in the world, I'm treated like royalty.”

“I see the root of the education crisis in the primary and secondary schools. Academia is doing a fairly good job. The root of the problem is the teachers. Some are great. But too many of them are not capable of being good role models. They can't control the classes. They lose too much time trying to create a learning environment.”

“I'm proud of my family, very proud - I have ten grandchildren, four children, and one wife.”

“The frontiers of science, on the very small scale and very large scale, require large investments and international effort.”

“Me as president would not be like anybody else as president. Everyone does the job differently.”

“Israel, in general, should learn from other nations. We have a tendency to teach the world. In many cases, we should learn from the world, because they make advances.”

“Science is the ultimate tool to reveal the laws of nature, and the one word written on its banner is Truth.”

“I think I can change things for the better in this country. I'm doing it now as well, in many areas, mostly in education, higher education and technological entrepreneurship. But I think I could do a lot more from a presidential position.”

“On April 8, 1982, I was alone in the electron microscope room when I discovered the Icosahedral Phase that opened the field of quasi-periodic crystals.”

“In the forefront of science, there is not much difference between religion and science. People harbor beliefs. That's what happens when people believe something religiously.”

“I think the main lesson that I have learned is that a good scientist is a humble scientist who is open-minded to listen to other scientists when they discover something.”