Quotes by David Ben-Gurion

“We have preserved the book, and the book has preserved us.”

“In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.”

“Thought is a strenuous art - few practice it, and then only at rare times.”

“Without moral and intellectual independence, there is no anchor for national independence.”

“Anyone who believes you can't change history has never tried to write his memoirs.”

“Courage is a special kind of knowledge: the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared.”

“Ours is a country built more on people than on territory. The Jews will come from everywhere: from France, from Russia, from America, from Yemen... Their faith is their passport.”

“Courage is ... the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared.”

“In Israel in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”

“The past is our very being.”

“Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles is not a realist.”

“In Israel in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”

“The agricultural community that the Arabs found in Eretz Israel in the 7th century was none other than the Hebrew farmers that remained on their land despite all the persecution and oppression of t...”

“The fellahin are not descendants of the Arab conquerors, who captured Eretz Israel and Syria in the seventh century CE. The Arab conquerors did not destroy the agricultural population they found in...”

“The greater majority and main structures of the Muslim falahin in western Eretz Israel present to us one racial strand and a whole ethnic unit, and there is no doubt that much Jewish blood flows in...”

“Everybody sees a difficulty in the question of relations between Arabs and Jews. But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question. No solution! There is a gulf, and nothing can bri...”

“Under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellahs or worked by them. Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement, should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price.”

“The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan: one does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today, but the bounda...”

“In our political argument abroad, we minimize Arab opposition to us. But let us not ignore the truth among ourselves. I insist on the truth, not out of respect for scientific but political realitie...”

“Terrorism benefits the Arabs, it may lay waste the Yishuv and shake Zionism. But to follow in the Arabs' footsteps and ape their deeds is to be blind to the gulf between us. Our aims and theirs run...”