Top 100 Meir Quotes
#1. Just for the record, I personally do agree with some of the sentiments of Rabbi Meir Kahane. I think he was right about certain things, wrong about other things, but I have absolutely nothing, no association whatsoever with Kahane Chai leaders.
Aaron Klein
#2. Prime Minister Golda Meir said that the Middle East will see peace when Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel. On behalf of many Arab mothers, this is one mother who not only loves her children, but also loves Israel's children.
Nonie Darwish
#3. My first biography was 'Our Golda: The Life of Golda Meir.' To research that book, I bought a 1905 set of encyclopedias. Those books told me what each of the places Golda Meir lived in were like when she lived there.
David A. Adler
#4. One of the most influential women of the 20th century? Well, that may be overdoing it. When one thinks of really influential women, my mind turns to Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, ... some of the true political leaders in their own right.
William A. Rusher
#5. The Jew does not wish to be isolated. He fears being alone, without allies.
Meir Kahane
#6. It isnt enough to believe in something; you have to have the stamina to meet obstacles and overcome them, to struggle.
Golda Meir
#7. The giving of the Torah is a story of God seeking to provide humanity with the opportunity to make moral decisions.
Meir Soloveichik
#8. It is true we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them. We don't want victories anymore.
Golda Meir
#9. We have our own values; we build our own special, our JEWISH life - and we are proud, so very proud.
Meir Kahane
#10. The observant Jew has his own sense of values. Torah Judaism is his blueprint for this life, his target for existence.
Meir Kahane
#11. For both Protestants and Catholics, and whether or not absolute continence is demanded of the clergy, celibacy remains a blessed spiritual state.
Meir Soloveichik
#12. Don't be so humble, you're not that great.
Golda Meir
#13. Stanley Hauerwas is correct that Judaism insists on the bearing of children because it is essential to Jewish continuity. But to end the matter there is to miss an essential point: if we are to learn to love others, Judaism says, we must begin by loving those who are closest to us.
Meir Soloveichik
#14. Above all, it is not decency or goodness of gentleness that impresses the Middle East, but strength.
Meir Kahane
#15. 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.
Golda Meir
#16. We know a great deal about the configuration of the menorah from the biblical book of Exodus. Beaten out of solid gold, the ancient candelabrum boasted six branches emerging from a seventh, its central shaft. The menorah was adorned with golden buttons, cups, and flowers.
Meir Soloveichik
#17. You can get used to anything if you have to, even feeling perpetually guilty.
Golda Meir
#18. I see all this and know that if we are to save the Jewish state and its three-and-a-half million Jews from terrible horrors, we must rise up and demand a fundamental change in the very system of government.
Meir Kahane
#19. The poor Palestinians who today kill Jews with explosives and firebombs and stones are part of the same people who when they had all the territories they now demand be given to them for their state -attempted to drive the Jewish state into the sea.
Meir Kahane
#20. 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
Golda Meir
#21. A homing pigeon must love her home; otherwise she will not wish to return to it,
Meir Shalev
#22. Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values.
Golda Meir
#23. No trait is more justified than revenge in the right time and place.
Meir Kahane
#24. Whether women are better than men I cannot say ... but i can say they are certainly no worse.
Golda Meir
#25. How can finite man commune with an infinite God? To both Christians and Jews, God himself has made that possible by irrupting into the temporal world. To Christians, God became man in the Incarnation; to Jews, the God that spoke out of the fire on Mount Sinai gave his Torah.
Meir Soloveichik
#26. I know that elections must be limited only to those who understand that the Arabs are the deadly enemy of the Jewish state, who would bring on us a slow Auschwitz - not with gas, but with knives and hatchets.
Meir Kahane
#27. If R. Akiva was perhaps overly generous in judging his generation, it can perhaps be ascribed to the belief, based on his own experience, that everyone is capable of a dramatic life change.
Meir Soloveichik
#28. If God loves human beings and seeks to relate to them because he is drawn to something unique about them, then his love must be exclusive and cannot be universal.
Meir Soloveichik
#29. Glorious bouquets and storms of applause are the trimmings which every artist naturally enjoys.
Golda Meir
#30. Mine is the tongue tied silence of awkwardness, hers the smiling silence of anticipation, and then we utter inanities to each other, like "beautiful weather arranged for us" and "I like these kind of clouds.
Meir Shalev
#31. 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.
Golda Meir
#32. There is no greater anti-Semite that the Jewish one, and none hates the Jewish people more than the Jewish traitor and apostate.
Meir Kahane
#33. Throughout its history, the members of Shearith Israel have observed Thanksgiving by reciting in synagogue the same psalms of praise and gratitude sung by Jews all over the world on festive days like Hanukkah.
Meir Soloveichik
#34. Jews have been in Egypt since Biblical times, and Alexandria had once been, at least partially, a Jewish city.
Meir Kahane
#35. The stock exchange is a gambling club in which the house members (pros, institutional traders, the State) take advantage of the public's greed in order to profit from their mistakes.
Meir Barak
#36. You can't improve on saying nothing.
Golda Meir
#37. The essence of a religion can be discovered by asking its adherents one question: 'What, to your mind, was the seminal moment in the history of the world?'
Meir Soloveichik
#38. We say peace and the echo comes back from the other side, war. We dont want wars even when we win.
Golda Meir
#39. Anybody who believes in something without reservation believes that this thing is right and should be, has the stamina to meet obstacles and overcome them.
Golda Meir
#40. The difference is that if we turn from the Gentile first, we will have the Almighty as the immediate staff and our comfort. If not, we will have neither the Gentile nor, for a terrible stage, the Almighty.
Meir Kahane
#41. 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.
Golda Meir
#42. For so long as the Jew has even one ally, he will be convinced - in his smallness of mind - that his salvation came from that ally. It is only when he is alone - against all of his own efforts and frantic attempts - that he will, through no choice, be compelled to turn to G-d.
Meir Kahane
#43. 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.
Golda Meir
#44. A leader who doesn't hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.
Golda Meir
#45. The world says that time is money, but I say that money is time. In order to earn enough money to satisfy his desires, one must sacrifice inordinate amounts of time. For me, that sacrifice is too great.
Israel Meir Kagan
#46. 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 ...
Golda Meir
#48. 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.
Golda Meir
#49. To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don't be.
Golda Meir
#50. Even as Jews and Christians profoundly disagree about the truth, they are united in the belief that there is a truth to be sought.
Meir Soloveichik
#51. I'm a slave to this leaf in a diary that lists what I must do, what I must say, every half hour.
Golda Meir
#52. The sign of a great man is that the closer you get, the greater he seems.
Israel Meir Kagan
#53. Judaism, I would argue, does demand love for our fellow human beings, but only to an extent. 'Hate' is not always synonymous with the terribly sinful.
Meir Soloveichik
#54. Love has its place, as does hate. Peace has its place, as does war. Mercy has its place, as do cruelty and revenge.
Meir Kahane
#55. Jews seek to cleave to the will of God as set forth in the Bible and, particularly, the Pentateuch, with its rabbinic commentaries, the Mishnah and Talmud.
Meir Soloveichik
#56. 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.
Golda Meir
#57. In both Israel and America, Jews have experienced unparalleled freedoms, achieved great economic success, and exercised appropriate degrees of political power.
Meir Soloveichik
#58. I prefer a powerful and proud Jewish State that is hated by the entire world than an Auschwitz that is loved by one and all
Meir Kahane
#59. This is Zemzem near Mecca. According to this, however, Hagar headed into the Arabian Peninsula rather than toward Egypt.
Abraham Meir Ben Ibn Ezra
#60. 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?
Golda Meir
#61. Men are committing the rapes. Let them be put under curfew.
Golda Meir
#62. For Jews, the paradigmatic convert is the biblical Ruth, who sought not only a new relationship with God but also a new nationality.
Meir Soloveichik
#64. 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!
Golda Meir
#65. There is no Zionism except the rescue of Jews.
Golda Meir
#66. As with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, the origins of Shearith Israel trace back to a small group of religious freedom-seekers and a treacherous ocean passage to the New World.
Meir Soloveichik
#67. To the Christian Church, the destruction of the Temple served as an ultimate sign that the Jews were no longer God's chosen people, divine favor having now been transferred to a newer and better Israel.
Meir Soloveichik
#68. It is incumbent upon us to understand our greatness and believe in it so that we do not cheapen and profane ourselves.
Meir Kahane
#69. While Jews and Christians both agree on many religious issues, we disagree, and believe each other profoundly wrong, about others.
Meir Soloveichik
#70. Marriage is about love, but it is not first and foremost about love. First and foremost, marriage is about continuity and transmission.
Meir Soloveichik
#71. You'll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.
Golda Meir
#72. Today, Jewish defense is an accepted thing.
Meir Kahane
#73. The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with.
Golda Meir
#74. The modern woman asks herself: Is there something wrong with me if my children don't fill up my life?
Golda Meir
#75. Can we today measure devotion to husband and children by our indifference to everything else?
Golda Meir
#76. 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.
Golda Meir
#77. Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you're aboard there's nothing you can do.
Golda Meir
#78. The world hates a Jew who hits back. The world loves us only when we are to be pitied.
Golda Meir
#79. The deserts of the Middle East are in need of water, not bombers.
Golda Meir
#80. To be successful, a woman has to be much better at her job than a man.
Golda Meir
#81. Don't be humble ... you're not that great.
Golda Meir
#82. 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.
Golda Meir
#83. Fashion is an imposition, a reign on freedom.
Golda Meir
#84. How can I explain the difference to me between America and Russia? ... the America I've known is a place where men on horseback escort union marchers, the Russia I've known is a place where men on horseback slaughter young Socialists and Jews.
Golda Meir
#85. As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.
Golda Meir
#86. If we have to have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we'd rather be alive and have the bad image.
Golda Meir
#87. Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.
Golda Meir
#88. We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown and when strawberries bloom in Israel.
Golda Meir
#89. I am humbled and deeply honored to have been asked to serve the congregants of Shearith Israel, a congregation with an incomparable history, where some of America's most distinguished rabbis have pastored and preached.
Meir Soloveichik
#90. Surely it is time for Jews, worried over the huge growth of Arabs in Israel, to consider finishing the exchange of populations that began 35 years ago.
Meir Kahane
#91. In short, Arab leaders committed to the destruction of Israel invented the concept "Palestinian people" in order to justify their interminable war against Israel.
Meir Levi, David
#92. Rather than forgive, we can wish ill; rather than hope for repentance, we can instead hope that our enemies experience the wrath of God.
Meir Soloveichik
#93. Traditional Christians cannot conceive of God as Mormons do: a God who has a wife, who invites other human beings to become gods with him.
Meir Soloveichik
#94. Jews bear children not only because the carnal election of Abraham must continue. For Jews, raising children is essential to living a rounded ethical life.
Meir Soloveichik
#95. We don't want wars even when we win.
Golda Meir
#96. The only way to eliminate war is to love our children more than we hate our enemies.
Golda Meir
#97. There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.
Golda Meir
#98. We live in an age in which the biblical-moral traditions that have guided us for centuries are increasingly being forgotten.
Meir Soloveichik
#99. 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.
Golda Meir
#100. I do work a lot on arguing that things which people assume are always wrong are not necessarily so and, indeed, can often be right.
Meir Soloveichik
