I think I was a good student, because I jumped over a school. My

The statesman and dreamer, Shimon Peres, once recalled his youth with these words: “I think I was a good student, because I jumped over a school. My main interest was basically history and literature. Sports were basically basketball and swimming at a pool. I was so happy.” These words, spoken with humility and simplicity, reveal not only the innocence of a young life but also the roots of a soul destined for greatness. They remind us that the foundation of leadership is often built in the quiet days of study, play, and joy, long before the world calls a man to its stage.

This quote reveals the balance of learning and living. Peres speaks of history and literature, disciplines of the mind and heart, where the soul learns to see across ages, to imagine beyond the present moment. Yet he also speaks of basketball and swimming, the vigor of the body, the harmony of movement, and the joy of play. In this balance lies the secret of his happiness: he cultivated both the strength of intellect and the resilience of body, finding in each a source of vitality. The ancients would have called this the ideal of mens sana in corpore sano—a sound mind in a sound body.

The phrase “I jumped over a school” speaks to ambition and discipline. It suggests not arrogance, but dedication, a willingness to labor so earnestly that he could advance more swiftly than others. This leap was not only in academics but symbolic of his approach to life: never content to walk the ordinary path when a higher leap was possible. The young Peres showed the trait that would mark his later years as a leader—restless progress, always striving to go beyond what was expected.

History offers many echoes of this truth. Alexander Hamilton, as a boy in the Caribbean, devoted himself to books with such hunger that he surpassed his peers and earned his passage to the New World. His studies in history and literature shaped the words that later forged a nation. Like Peres, he found joy in learning, not as a burden but as liberation. So too did the philosopher Cicero, who said that to study history was to see the life of mankind stretched before the eyes, a mirror of wisdom. Such devotion to knowledge, paired with discipline in life, has always been the seed of greatness.

The meaning of Peres’s reflection is also in the final words: “I was so happy.” For what is the use of study or success without joy? Too many chase knowledge as a ladder to power, yet Peres speaks of it as a fountain of delight. He did not separate labor from happiness; instead, he found happiness in the very act of learning, of playing, of swimming in the pool of life itself. True wisdom is to discover contentment not after achievements, but during the journey of growth.

The lesson for us is profound: to cultivate both mind and body, to embrace study not as drudgery but as joy, and to find happiness not only in triumph but in practice. We must ask ourselves: What do I love to learn? What strengthens my spirit? What simple joys renew me? If we can answer these, then like Peres, we may one day look back on our youth and see it not as struggle, but as the blessed foundation of all that followed.

Thus, Shimon Peres’s quote is not only a memory of childhood but a teaching for every generation. It calls us to leap higher, to study deeply, to play joyfully, and to live with balance. It reminds us that happiness is not found in waiting for great achievements, but in cherishing the daily acts of growth. Let us then live as students always—of history, of literature, of the body’s discipline, of life’s simple joys—and may we too, like Peres, say with truth at the end of our days: “I was so happy.”