Human beings act intelligently only after they have exhausted the alternatives
ABBA EBANIf Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.
More Abba Eban Quotes
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A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.
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I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender.
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Zionism is nothing more, but also nothing less, than the Jewish People’s sense of origin and destination in the Land linked eternally with its name.
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Our intention to regard the closing of the Straits as a casus belli was communicated…to the foreign ministers of those states which had supported international navigation in the Straits in 1957 and thereafter.
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Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its ‘right to exist.’ Israel’s right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved.
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Tragedy is the difference between what is and what could have been.
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His ignorance is encyclopedic.
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You can’t achieve anything without getting in someone’s way. You can’t be detached and effective.
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Tragedy is not what men suffer but what they miss.
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Playing the game I have learned the meaning of humility. It has given me an understanding of futility of the human effort.
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Salvation, the prophets tell us, is preconditioned by repentance. The redeeming act of God waits upon man’s initiative.
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History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
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Israel is not an aviary.
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A statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of movement.
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Science is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don’t worship it. Feed it. [Addressing a group of prospective contributors to an Israeli scientific research program]
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