Golda Meir

"We must teach our children to be kind, brave, and true."

"I believe that every person deserves respect and dignity."

"The greatest power is the power to forgive."

"I have learned that life is about making choices that reflect your values."

"We are stronger together than we are apart."

"I believe in the power of people to create change."

"We have created a new image of Zionism. Zionism was originally a movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in Israel. Now it has come to mean something more than that. It means a Jewish people actively involved in building and defending a Jewish state."

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

"I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was right to do, then I was for doing it, regardless of whether it was popular or unpopular."

"We learned to be patient observers of the world, and at the same time, we had to learn to act. Quietism is not Judaism. Judaism has always left for man the possibility and the duty of acting."

"The most important thing is the ability to think clearly and to act decisively."

"I have always believed that what we do in our lives echoes in eternity."

"A man may have a blazing hearth in his soul and yet no one ever comes to sit by it."

"Make the most of what you have. When you are left with only dreams, dreams are enough."

"At critical moments in history, choices made by a handful of people shape the destiny of millions."

"I want to be remembered as someone who wanted to bring peace to the Middle East and who worked to do so."

"The Jewish people have waited four thousand years for their enemies to force them into the sea, and I really do not think that this is going to happen now."

"Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you're aboard, there's nothing you can do about it, so you might as well relax."

"Trust yourself. When I was in my twenties, though I was not a beauty, men found me attractive. Why? Because I was trustworthy."

"The woman who truly knows herself has no need for the approval of others."

"We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton comes up well on its way."

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

"It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed."

"Anybody who believes you can have infinite growth on a finite planet is either mad or an economist."

"I have always held firmly to the thought that each of us can, in the end, only answer for himself."

"It takes more courage to reveal yourself than to hide. More strength to relate to people than to control them."

"We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have nowhere else to go."

"Education is not merely a means for earning a living or an instrument for social uplift. It is an investment in human beings."

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

"The old must make way for the new, but wisely and cautiously."