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.

- Abba Eban

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

- Abba Eban

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

- Abba Eban

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.

- Abba Eban

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.

- Abba Eban

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

- Abba Eban

Better to be disliked than pitied.

- Abba Eban

His ignorance is encyclopedic.

- Abba Eban

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

- Abba Eban

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

- Abba Eban

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

- Abba Eban

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

- Abba Eban

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.

- Abba Eban

Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives.

- 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.

- Abba Eban