Jews From Poland

"If a person is able … to experience the reality that he was never loved as a child for what he was but was instead needed and exploited for his achievements, success, and good qualities—and that he sacrificed his childhood for this form of love—he will be very deeply shaken, but one day he will feel the desire to end these efforts. He will discover in himself a need to live according to his true self and no longer be forced to earn “love” that always leaves him empty-handed, since it is given to his false self—something he has begun to identify and relinquish."

"Everyone probably knows about depressive moods from personal experience since they may be expressed as well as hidden by psychosomatic suffering. It is easy to notice, if we pay attention, that they hit almost with regularity—whenever we suppress an impulse or an unwanted emotion."

"Clinging uncritically to traditional ideas and beliefs often serves to obscure or deny real facts of our life history."

"Accommodation to parental needs often (but not always) leads to the "as-if personality." This person develops in such a way that he reveals only what is expected of him and fuses so completely with what he reveals that one could scarcely guess how much more there is to him behind this false self. He cannot develop and differentiate his true self, because he is unable to live it. Understandably, this person will complain of a sense of emptiness, futility, or homelessness, for the emptiness is real. A process of emptying, impoverishment, and crippling of his potential actually took place. The integrity of the child was injured when all that was alive and spontaneous in him was cut off."

"The mother can feel herself the center of attention, for her child's eyes follow her everywhere. A child cannot run away from her as her own mother once did."

"We realize that by criticizing Jewish fundamentalism we are criticizing a part of the past that we love. We wish that members of every human grouping would criticize their own past, even before criticizing others."

"Both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands, uttering a special blessing. On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God, by promoting the divine union of Son and Daughter; but on the other he is worshiping Satan, who likes Jewish prayers and ritual acts so much that when he is offered a few of them it keeps him busy for a while and he forgets to pester the divine daughter."

"Modern racism (of which antisemitism is part) although caused by specific social conditions, becomes, when it gains strength, a force that in my opinion can only be described as demonic."

"I strongly believe that antisemitism and Jewish chauvinism can only be fought simultaneously."

"That is a Nazi expression. The Nazis called Germans who defended Jewish rights self-hating Germans."

"It is my considered opinion that the State of Israel is a racist state in the full meaning of this term: In this state people are discriminated against, in the most permanent and legal way and in the most important areas of life, only because of their origin. This racist discrimination began in Zionism and is carried out today mainly in co-operation with the institutions of the Zionist movement."

"You cannot have humane Zionism, it is a contradiction in terms."

"Gore Vidal referred to Israel Shahak as the "latest – if not the last – of the great prophets." Edward Said saw him as one of the "most remarkable individuals in the contemporary Middle East." Noam Chomsky regarded him as "an outstanding scholar, with remarkable insight and depth of knowledge.""

"Your majesty, the king of Saudi Arabia, I was listening to your message. I wish that your voice will become the prevailing voice of the whole region, of all people. It's right, it's needed, it's promising … The initiative's portrayal of our region's future provides hope to the people and inspires confidence in the nations."

"I will confine myself to reaffirming the Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the region."

"If world is suspicious that Israel may detonate nuclear bomb and if the suspicion is a deterrent — that's good enough."

"The president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map."

"Iran is a great problem, but not necessarily a great country. In fact, I think it is a very weak country."

"We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. It is a tragedy what the Armenians went through but not a genocide [...] Israel should not determine a historical or philosophical position on the Armenian issue. If we have to determine a position, it should be done with great care not to distort the historical realities."

"The borders will be based on 1967, with the required security modifications. If we take a certain percentage of the Palestinian land, we will compensate them with land. We will not rob their land. Sovereignty yes, but no one would threaten this Palestinian state, and therefore the Palestinians also agree that it can be demilitarized. When the threats on Israel would also cease, I hope that Israel could be demilitarized too."

"There isn't a single person in Israel who wants to destroy or harm Egypt. In contrast, there's a whole country that openly wants to destroy Israel, and that's Iran. That is the difference between ours and Egypt's security problems. Egypt is not threatened by anyone. Israel is threatened by the second circle. Israel has never been and will never be a danger to Egypt. [...] Israel is not threatening Iran, Iran is threatening Israel. The situation is not similar."

"Optimists and pessimists die the same way. They just live differently. I prefer to live as an optimist."

"There's a great deal of criticism about the United States, but there is one thing that nobody criticizes the United States. Nobody thinks the United States went to strike against Iraq in order to gain land or water or oil, nobody thinks America has any ambitions about real estate. As it happened in the 20th century, the American boys went to fight in two world wars, many of them lost their lives. The United States won the wars, won the land, but you gave back every piece of it. America didn't keep anything out of her victories for herself. You gave back Japan, an improved Japan, you gave Germany, an improved Germany, you've heard the Marshall Plan. And today, I do not believe there is any serious person on earth who thinks the United States, whether you agree or don't agree with this strike, has any egoistic or material purposes in the war against Iraq. The reason is, for this strike, that you cannot let the world run wild. And people who are coming from different corners of our life, attack and kill women and children and innocent people, just out of the blue. And I think the whole world is lucky that there is a United States that has the will and the power to handle the new danger that has arrived on the 21st century."

"Until the Yom Kippur War, in 1973, until then Israel didn't have a chance but to fight for her life. We were attacked five times, outgunned, outnumbered, on a small piece of land, and our main challenge was to remain alive."

"He is sinister and slippery, always the man in a hurry."

"Not long ago, at a meeting of people involved with social policy, Mr. Shimon Peres said that there are two things in the world that have no lobby: the weak and the future. I would recommend that we all adopt this diagnosis. We have too big a lobby for the past and not a big enough one for the future."

"(HC: What is your personal estimate of Shimon Peres' performance as Prime Minister?) SH: I think he is doing very well indeed. But I am not at all surprised. I have known him for years. Apart from all else, he is a sensitive, genuinely thoughtful, widely-read person. Moreover, he maintains an ongoing dialogue with the intellectual community. Now that is real change from, say, Menachem Begin-not to mention Golda Meir!"

"The way to make peace is not through governments. It is through people."

"India and Israel are co-operating on security and intelligence matters because we have a common enemy: terrorism."

"If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact, not to be solved, but to be coped with over time."

"India represents the new world in a unique sense. Traditionally democracies were trying to bring equality to all walks of life, today there is a change. Democracy wants to enable every country to have the equal right to be different; it's a collection of differences, not an attempt to force or impose equality on every country. I think India is the greatest show of how so many differences in language, in sects can coexist facing great suffering and keeping full freedom... Many of the countries in the Middle East should learn from you how to escape poverty. You didn't escape poverty by getting American dollars or Russian Roubles but by introducing your own internal reforms and by understanding that the new call of modernity is science. In between the spiritual wealth of Gandhi and the earthly wisdom of Nehru, you combined a great performance of spirit and practice to escape poverty...I know you still have a long way to go but you do it without compromising freedom. The temptation when you're such a large country to introduce discipline and imposition is great but you tried to do it, to make progress not with force and discipline but in an open way. Many of us were educated on the literature of India when we fell in love we read Rabindranath Tagore and when we matured we tried to understand Gandhi."

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."

"When Sam Goldwyn can with great conviction instruct Anna Sten in diction, then Anna shows, Anything goes!"

"If you have a message, call Western Union."

"Anyone who would go to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined!"

"I read part of it all the way through."

"The next time I send a damn fool for something, I go myself."

"We have that Indian scene. We can get the Indians from the reservoir."

"Gentlemen, include me out. (or just "Include me out.")"

"I can answer you in two words: im-possible!"

"Our comedies are not to be laughed at."

"I don't think anybody should write his autobiography until after he's dead."

"Unnamed director: [The script is] too caustic. Goldwyn: To hell with the cost. If it's a good picture, we'll make it."

"Free discussion requires an atmosphere unembarrassed by any suggestion of authority or even respect. If a subordinate always agrees with his superior he is a useless part of the organization. In this connection there is a story of Admiral Sims when he was on duty in London in World War I. He called a conscientious hard-working officer in to him to explain why he was dissatisfied with the officer's work. The officer blushed and stammered when Sims pointed out that in all the time they had been working together the officer had never once disagreed with Sims."

"I don't mean to suggest... that he is a man who is without controversy. He speaks his mind. Sometimes he has rivals who disagree with him; sometimes they are right, and he is the first to admit that sometimes he might be wrong. But the greatness of the American military service, and particularly the greatness of the Navy, is symbolized in this ceremony today, because this man, who is controversial, this man, who comes up with unorthodox ideas, did not become submerged by the bureaucracy, because once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity."

"Why not the best?"

"You have to learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself."

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."

"Success teaches us nothing; only failure teaches."

"Thoughts arising from practical experience may be a bridle or a spur."