Top 97 Quotes & Sayings by Golda Meir

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

Being seventy is not a sin.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

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.

It is true we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them. We don't want victories anymore.

We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon - no alternative.

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

Fashion is an imposition, a reign on freedom.

Don't be humble... you're not that great.

We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have no place to go.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The dog that trots about finds a bone.

Women's liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It's men who are discriminated against. They can't bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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

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.

Once in a Cabinet we had to deal with the fact that there had been an outbreak of assaults on women at night. One minister suggested a curfew; women should stay home after dark. I said, 'But it's the men who are attacking the women. If there's to be a curfew, let the men stay home, not the women.

You can't improve on saying nothing.

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

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

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

It is not a sin to be seventy but it is also no joke.

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...

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

How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It isnt enough to believe in something; you have to have the stamina to meet obstacles and overcome them, to struggle.

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.

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