Quotes from Golda Meir

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

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

Show me a sensible person who likes himself or herself! I know myself too well to like what I see. I know but too well that I'm not what I'd like to be.

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

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

From Russia I didn't bring out a single happy memory, only sad, tragic ones. The nightmare of pogroms, the brutality of Cossacks charging young Socialists, fear, shrieks of terror.

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

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 modern woman asks herself: Is there something wrong with me if my children don't fill up my life?

There is only one thing I hope to see before I die, and that is that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore.

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