ABBA EBAN

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

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.

The Jews are the living embodiment of the minority, the constant reminder of what duties societies owe their minorities, whoever they might be.

You can't achieve anything without getting in someone's way.

His ignorance is encyclopedic.

Better to be disliked than pitied.

Consensus is what many people say in chorus but do not believe as individuals.

One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all.

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.

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

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

A great part Jewish history was occupied by the simple attempt of Jews to stay alive.

Governments first decide on their interests and then seek the vocabulary most congenial to their policies.

It is doubtful if anyone could recount a single instance in which a rupture of diplomatic relations has ever brought any benefit to the government that initiated the break.

The Middle East is so constructed that the rational things are the things least likely to occur.

Wars are most often won by those who have made the greatest effort to prevent them.

[Describing the United Nations:] ... a beehive without honey ... a chaotic and sterile maelstrom

a charge of monumental inconsequentiality.

American democracy is at its best in its talent for the transfer for power.

Surely diplomacy is needed when there is conflict, not when there is harmony.

Failure was built into it by an extraordinary of exaggerated expectations.

Few strong leaders are enthusiastic about their successors.

The government of Israel is not an aviary.

Time and again ... governments have rejected proposals today—and longed for them tomorrow.

If the United Nations would not take responsibility in time of peril, by what right should it claim authority when the danger is passed.