Between the Mediterranean and the borders of Iraq, in what was once Palestine, there are now two countries, one Jewish and one Arab, and there is no room for a third. The Palestinians must find the solution to their problem together with that Arab country, Jordan, because a ‘Palestinian state’ between us and Jordan can only become a base from which it will be more convenient to attack and destroy Israel.

It has never ceased to astonish me that the Arab states have been so eager to go to war against us. Almost from the very beginning of Zionist settlement until today, they have been consumed by hatred for us.

The British went on fighting like lions against the Germans, the Italians, and the Japanese, but they couldn’t or wouldn’t stand up to the Arabs at all – though much of the Arab world was openly pro-Nazi.

I have given instructions that I be informed every time one of our soldiers is killed, even if it is in the middle of the night. When President Nasser leaves instructions that he is to be awakened in the middle of the night if an Egyptian soldier is killed, there will be peace.

In Israel, we read from right to left. [To Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State, who had written her that he considers himself ‘an American first, Secretary of State second, and a Jew third’]

We refuse to disappear, no matter how strong and brutal and ruthless the forces against us might be.

No people in the world know collective eulogies as well as we Jews do. But we have no intention of going down in order that some should speak well of us.

A teacher is one who has a program – arithmetic, reading, writing, and so on – fulfils it conscientiously, and feels that he has done his job. An educator tries to give children something else in addition: spirit.

What do you gain, Soviet Union, from this miserable policy Where is your decency Would it be a disgrace for you to give up this battle (On suppression of freedom for Jews in the USSR).

Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values.

How does it feel to be a woman minister? I don’t know; I’ve never been a man minister.

It’s not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.

The only way to eliminate war is to love our children more than we hate our enemies.

Come to think of it, I am more than a little tired of hearing about how the Jews ‘stole’ land from Arabs in Palestine. The facts are quite different. A lot of good money changed hands, and a lot of Arabs became very rich indeed.

Glorious bouquets and storms of applause are the trimmings which every artist naturally enjoys.

I thought that a Jewish state would be free of the evils afflicting other societies: theft, murder, prostitution… But now we have them all. And that’s a thing that cuts to the heart.

Israel itself is the strongest guarantee against another Holocaust.

You can get used to anything if you have to, even feeling perpetually guilty.

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.

The only alternative to war is peace and the only road to peace is negotiations.

By the way, did you ever realize that if Moses would have turned right instead of left, we’d have had the oil, the Arabs would have had the sand?

This world of ours was not created to be the testing ground for the perfection of weapons to wipe us out .

I prefer to stay alive and be criticized than be sympathized.

Those that perished in Hitler’s gas chambers were the last Jews to die without standing up to defend themselves.

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.

It is always much easier, I have discovered, to make people cry or gasp than to make them think.

I want to be able to live without a crowded calendar. I want to be able to read a book without feeling guilty, or go to a concert when I like.

Can we today measure devotion to husband and children by our indifference to everything else?

The deserts of the Middle East are in need of water, not bombers.

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.

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.

If only political leaders would allow themselves to feel, as well as to think, the world might be a happier place.

We say peace and the echo comes back from the other side, war. We dont want wars even when we win.

I don’t know why you use a fancy French word like detente when there’s a good English phrase for it – cold war.

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with.

The Soviet government is the most realistic regime in the world – no ideals.

Men who have reached and passed forty-five, have a look as if waiting for the secret of the other world, and as if they were perfectly sure of having found out the secret of this.

Being seventy is not a sin.

We only want that which is given naturally, to all peoples of the world, to be masters of our own fate, only of our fate, not of others, and in cooperation and friendship with others.

I was never so naïve or foolish to think that if you merely believe in something it happens. You must struggle for it.

Give me peace, and I will give you the Promised Land.

Faith must go beyond rational thinking in order to truly blossom.

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

It isn’t enough to be liked by the people. You must also be right.

We must remember that the main enemy is the Arabs. We must not declare war on the Arab States, but we must be prepared in our hearts and minds to see them not only as individuals, but as an Arab nation.

There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.

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.

The world hates a Jew who hits back. The world loves us only when we are to be pitied.

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.

The man of the Cross, who heads the church whose symbol is the Cross, under which Jews were killed for generations. I could not escape the feeling. It stuck with me. And he felt it-that a Jewess was sitting opposite him.

Arab sovereignty in Jerusalem just cannot be. This city will not be divided-not half and half, not 60-40, not 75-25, nothing.

You can’t improve on saying nothing.

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.

There is no such thing as a Palestinian.

Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.

To be successful, a woman has to be much better at her job than a man.

At work, you think of the children you’ve 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.

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.

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.

To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don’t be.

I never did anything alone. Whatever was accomplished in this country was accomplished collectively.

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard there’s nothing you can do.

There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.

Whether women are better than men I cannot say … but i can say they are certainly no worse.

Not being beautiful was the true blessing. Not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources. The pretty girl has a handicap to overcome.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

Women’s liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children.

A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!

We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown and when strawberries bloom in Israel.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

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.

We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon — no alternative. The Egyptians could run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight.

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.

My delegation cannot refrain from speaking on this question — we who have such an intimate knowledge of boxcars and of deportations to unknown destinations that we cannot be silent.

We don’t thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to, and thank God we are efficient.

There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.

If we have to have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.

There will be peace in the Middle East only when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel.

We can forgive [the Arabs] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with [the Arabs] when they love their children more than they hate us.

Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart, don’t know how to laugh either.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.

The dog that trots about finds a bone.

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

Fashion is an imposition, a rein on freedom.

It is true we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them.

There is no Zionism except the rescue of Jews.

Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great.

You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.