Quotes by Abba Eban

• The Jews are the living embodiment of the minority, the constant reminder of what duties societies owe their minorities, whoever they might be.
• 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.
• Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives.
• 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.
• It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.
• Time and again these governments have rejected proposals today - and longed for them tomorrow.
• History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
• His ignorance is encyclopedic.
• Consensus is what many people say in chorus but do not believe as individuals.
• Better to be disliked than pitied.
• 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.
• You can't achieve anything without getting in someone's way.
• 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.