Talk:Golda Meir

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golda meir..what an amazing woman!

[edit] Source problems

Many of the quotations in the "Sourced" section aren't. It would be good if an editor more familiar with the subject located the sources for these quotations, or else moved them to the "Unsourced" section if the source cannot be found. 121a0012 06:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced

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

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

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

• 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.

• Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

• Being a grandmother, I'm certain we're going to have peace in the Middle East, for I know there are other grandmothers in Egypt, in Jordan and in Syria who also want their children to live.

• Being seventy is not a sin.

• Don't be humble. You aren't that great.
  • Variant: Don't be humble... you're not that great.

• Glorious bouquets and storms of applause are the trimmings which every artist naturally enjoys.

• 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.

• 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.

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

• 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'

• 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.

• Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you're aboard, there's nothing you can do.

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

• The dog that trots about finds a bone.

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

• 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.

• 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.

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

• We can forgive you for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours.
  • To Anwar Sadat just before peace talks.

• We only want that which is given naturally to all peoples...to be masters of our own fate.

• Whether women are better than men I cannot say — but I can say they are certainly no worse.
  • Variant: Whether women are better than men I cannot say, but they are certainly no worse.

• You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

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

• Your holiness, do you know what my earliest memory is? It is waiting for a pogrom in Kiev. Let me assure you that my people know all about real "harshness" and also that we learned all about the real mercy when we were being led to the gas chambers of the Nazis.
  • To Pope Paul VI after he commented that the Jews were behaving very harshly in their country.