Quotes by Golda Meir
Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Golda Meir. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Golda Meir
Golda Meir (born Golda Mabovitch; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was an Israeli stateswoman, politician, teacher, and kibbutznik who served as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel.
Born in Kyiv, she emigrated to the United States as a child with her family in 1906, and was educated there, becoming a teacher. After getting married, she and her husband emigrated to then Palestine in 1921, settling on a kibbutz. Meir was elected prime minister of Israel on March 17, 1969, after serving as Minister of Labour and Foreign Minister. The world's fourth and Israel's first and only woman to hold the office of Prime Minister, and the first in any country in the Middle East, she has been described as the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics.
Former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion used to call Meir "the best man in the government"; she was often portrayed as the "strong-willed, straight-talking, grey-bunned grandmother of the Jewish people."Meir resigned as prime minister in 1974, the year following the Yom Kippur War. She died in 1978 of lymphoma.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Whether women are better than men I cannot say -- but I can say they are certainly no worse.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The Soviet government is the most realistic regime in the world -- no ideals.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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!

Share... | See all 16 versions
There is no such thing as a Palestinian.
Longer Version:
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Being seventy is not a sin.
Longer Version:
Being seventy is not a sin. It's not a joy, either.

Share... | See all 16 versions
It isnt enough to believe in something; you have to have the stamina to meet obstacles and overcome them, to struggle.

Share... | See all 16 versions
I never did anything alone. Whatever was accomplished in this country was accomplished collectively.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The world hates a Jew who hits back. The world loves us only when we are to be pitied.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
I'm a slave to this leaf in a diary that lists what I must do, what I must say, every half hour.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 3 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
If only political leaders would allow themselves to feel, as well as to think, the world might be a happier place.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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?

Share... | See all 4 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Arab sovereignty in Jerusalem just cannot be. This city will not be divided -- not half and half, not 60-40, not 75-25, nothing.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.
Longer Version:
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have no place to go.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
We don't thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to, and thank God we are efficient.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon -- no alternative.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart, don't know how to laugh either.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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!

Share... | See all 16 versions
One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown and when strawberries bloom in Israel.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.