Famous Golda Quotes
"A leader who doesn't hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader."
"Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself." 
"Being
seventy is not a sin."
"Don't be humble... you're not that great."
"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 as Prime
Minister.
"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."
"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."
"Not till the fire is dying in
the grate, look we for any kinship with the stars. Oh, wisdom
never comes when it is gold, and the great price we paid for it full worth; We have it only
when we are half earth. Little avails that coinage to the old!"
"One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present."
"Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself."
"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."
"The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they
are dealing with."
"To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don't be."
Golda Meir addresses State of Israel
Bonds conference in Miami, Florida,
1973.
"To be successful, a woman has to be much better at her job than a man."
"Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy
to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning
the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement."
"We have always said that in our
war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon-no alternative."
"Whether women are better than men i cannot say-but i can say they are certainly no worse."
"Women's liberation is just a lot
of foolishness. It's men who are discriminated against.
They can't bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that."
"you'll never find a better sparring partner than adversity."
Golda Meir with Israeli Defense
Minister Moshe
Dayan, 1970.