“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.”

Human beings act intelligently only after they have exhausted the alternatives

You can’t achieve anything without getting in someone’s way. You can’t be detached and effective.

Israel is not an aviary.

It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.

A statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of movement.

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.

Tragedy is not what men suffer but what they miss.

Better to be disliked than pitied.

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]

Playing the game I have learned the meaning of humility. It has given me an understanding of futility of the human effort.

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.

Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Lest Arab governments be tempted out of sheer routine to rush into impulsive rejection, let me suggest that tragedy is not what men suffer but what they miss.

A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.

If 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.