Quotes from 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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

Fashion is an imposition, a rein on freedom.

Don't be humble. Your not that great.

There is no Zionism except the rescue of Jews.

The dog that trots about finds a bone.

It is true we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them.

Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

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

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

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']

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

It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.

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 so humble, you are not that great.

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.

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!

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

Come to think of it, I am more than a little tired of hearing about how the Jews 'stole' land from Arabs in Palestine. The facts are quite different. A lot of good money changed hands, and a lot of Arabs became very rich indeed.

Dont be so humble you're not that great