Golda Meir
Israel itself is the strongest guarantee against another Holocaust.Collection: Israel
We say peace and the echo comes back from the other side, war. We dont want wars even when we win.Collection: War
This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.Collection: Country
The only alternative to war is peace and the only road to peace is negotiations.Collection: Peace
Show me a sensible person who likes himself or herself! I know myself too well to like what I see. I know but too well that I'm not what I'd like to be.Collection: Likes
Being seventy is not a sin. It's not a joy, either.Collection: Funny
It's no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do?.. Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.Collection: Heart
We will not forgive you for making us kill your sons.Collection: Military
There is no such thing as a Palestinian.Collection: Palestinian
The deserts of the Middle East are in need of water, not bombers.Collection: Water
the modern woman asks herself: Is there something wrong with me if my children don't fill up my life?Collection: Children
How can I explain the difference to me between America and Russia?.. the America I've known is a place where men on horseback escort union marchers, the Russia I've known is a place where men on horseback slaughter young Socialists and Jews.Collection: Men
I'm a slave to this leaf in a diary that lists what I must do, what I must say, every half hour.Collection: Diaries
Can we today measure devotion to husband and children by our indifference to everything else?Collection: Children
It is a dreadful thing to see the dead city. Next to the port I found children, women, the old, waiting for a way to leave. I entered the houses, there were houses where the coffee and pita bread were left on the table, and I could not avoid [thinking] that this, indeed, had been the picture in many Jewish towns [i.e., in Europe, during World War II].Collection: Children
If only political leaders would allow themselves to feel, as well as to think, the world might be a happier place.Collection: Thinking
We only want that which is given naturally to all peoples of the world, to be masters of our own fate, not of others, and in cooperation and friendship with others.Collection: Friendship
Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen.Collection: Responsibility
I'm sure that someday children in schools will study the history of the men who made war as you study an absurdity. They'll be shocked, just as today we're shocked with cannibalism.Collection: Children
You can get used to anything if you have to, even feeling perpetually guilty.Collection: Feelings
At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.Collection: Mother
Men are committing the rapes. Let them be put under curfew.Collection: Men
Zionism and pessimism are not compatible.Collection: Funny
But the individual was not a tool for something. He was the maker of tools. He was the one who must build. Even for the best purpose it is criminal to turn an individual into simply a means for some ultimate end. A society in which the dignity of the individual is destroyed cannot hope to be a decent society.Collection: Mean
Anybody who believes in something without reservation believes that this thing is right and should be, has the stamina to meet obstacles and overcome them.Collection: Women
From Russia I didn't bring out a single happy memory, only sad, tragic ones. The nightmare of pogroms, the brutality of Cossacks charging young Socialists, fear, shrieks of terror.Collection: Memories
Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values.Collection: Civilization
I have given instructions that I be informed everytime one of our soldiers is killed, even if it is in themiddle of the night. When President Nasser leavesinstructions that he is to be awakened in the middleof the night if an Egyptian soldier is killed, there willbe peace.Collection: Night
I have always felt sorry for people afraid of feeling, of sentimentality, who are unable to weep with their whole heart. Because those who do not know how to weep do not know how to laugh either.Collection: Sorry
America is a great country. It has many shortcomings, many social inequalities, and it's tragic that the problem of the blacks wasn't solved fifty or even a hundred years ago, but it's still a great country, a country full of opportunities, of freedom! Does it seem nothing to you to be able to say what you like, even against the government, the Establishment?Collection: Country
A story once went the rounds of Israel to the effect that Ben-Gurion described me as 'the only man' in his cabinet. What amused me about is that he (or whoever invented the story) thought that this was the greatest compliment that could be paid to a woman. I very much doubt that any man would have been flattered if I had said about him that he was the only woman in the government!Collection: Men
How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.Collection: Israel
You can't improve on saying nothing.Collection: Silence
My dear, old age is like an airplane flying in a storm. Once you're in it there's nothing you can do. You can't stop a plane, you can't stop a storm, you can't stop time. So you might as well take it easy, with wisdom.Collection: Airplane
It isn't really important to decide when you are very young just exactly what you want to become when you grow up. It is much more important to decide on the way you want to live. If you are going to be honest with yourself and honest with your friends, if you are going to get involved in causes which are good for others, not only for yourselves, then it seems to me that that is sufficient, and maybe what you will be is only a matter of chance.Collection: Growing Up
Don't become cynical. Don't give up hope. Don't believe that everything is judged only by expediency. There is idealism in this world. There is human brotherhood.Collection: Giving Up
We don't want wars even when we win.Collection: Funny
It is not only a matter, I believe, of religious observance and practice. To me, being Jewish means and has always meant being proud to be part of a people that has maintained its distinct identity for more than 2,000 years, with all the pain and torment that has been inflicted upon it.Collection: Religious
One of the first sights that shocked me, when I came to Israel in 1921, was an Arab turning over a field with a very primitive plow; pulling the plow were an ox and a woman. Now, if it means that we have destroyed this romantic picture by bringing in tractors, combines, and threshing machines, this is true: we have.Collection: Funny
There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.Collection: Palestinian
There is only one thing I hope to see before I die, and that is that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore.Collection: Sympathy
It is not a sin to be seventy but it is also no joke.Collection: Age
I want to say to you, friends, that the Jewish community in Palestine is going to fight to the very end. If we have arms to fight with, we will fight with those, and if not, we will fight with stones in our hands.Collection: Fighting
I don't want to have a bad influence on anybody, but there's no point in my giving up cigarettes now. I won't die young.Collection: Funny
To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don’t be.Collection: Bullying