Golda Meir > Quotes

“Don't be so humble - you are not that great.”
― Golda Meir

“One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.”
― Golda Meir, My Life

“When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
― Golda Meir, A Land of Our Own: An Oral Autobiography

“Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either”
― Golda Meir

“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.”
― Golda Meir

“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. ”
― Golda Meir

“Let me tell you the one thing I have against Moses. He took us forty years into the desert in order to bring us to the one place in the Middle East that has no oil!”
― Golda Meir

“To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don't be.”
― Golda Meir

“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.”
― Golda Meir

“Whether women are better than men I cannot say ... but i can say they are certainly no worse.”
― Golda Meir

“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.”
― Golda Meir

“Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you're aboard there's nothing you can do.”
― Golda Meir, As good as Golda;: The warmth and wisdom of Israel's Prime Minister

“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.”
― Golda Meir

“Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great.”
― Golda Meir

“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!”
― Golda Meir

“I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.”
― Golda Meir

“I'm sure that someday children in schools will study the history of the men [sic] who made war as you study an absurdity. They'll be shocked, just as today we're shocked with cannibalism.”
― Golda Meir

“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.”
― Golda Meir

“Fashion is an imposition, a rein on freedom.”
― Golda Meir

“The Soviet government is the most realistic regime in the world - no ideals”
― Golda Meir

“It is true we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them.”
― Golda Meir

“There is no Zionism except the rescue of Jews.”
― Golda Meir

“Don't be humble. Your not that great. ”
― Golda Meir

“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']”
― Golda Meir

“The dog that trots about finds a bone. ”
― Golda Meir

“Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”
― Golda Meir

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

“It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.”
― Golda Meir

“You'll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.”
― golda meir

“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.”
― Golda Meir