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

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

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.

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

There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.

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.

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

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!

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!

We will not forgive you for making us kill your sons.

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

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

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

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.