Top 30 Moshe Dayan Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.”

— Moshe Dayan

Featured in: Famous Quotes, Freedom Quotes, Beautiful Quotes, Patriotic Quotes

2. “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”

— Moshe Dayan

3. “Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice.”

— Moshe Dayan

4. “To aim and hit, you need one eye only, and one good finger.”

— Moshe Dayan

5. “What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.”

— Moshe Dayan

6. “Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist.”

— Moshe Dayan

7. “There is no more Palestine. Finished.”

— Moshe Dayan

8. “I am not supposed to be an expert in every field. I am supposed to be an expert in picking experts.”

— Moshe Dayan

9. “I have only one eye. Do you want me to look at the road or the at the speedometer.”

— Moshe Dayan

10. “We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house.”

— Moshe Dayan

11. “There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”

— Moshe Dayan

12. “I know of nothing more exciting than war.”

— Moshe Dayan

13. “The method of collective punishment so far has proved effective.”

— Moshe Dayan

14. “A new State of Israel with broad frontiers, strong and solid, with the authority of the Israel Government extending from the Jordan to the Suez Canal.”

— Moshe Dayan

Featured in: Strong Quotes

15. “Most important, don’t do anything you don’t want.”

— Moshe Dayan

16. “After all, we are not children. It’s time we planned our life.”

— Moshe Dayan

17. “I feel I’ve lived so long, and went through so much, that all I want is calm and rest.”

— Moshe Dayan

18. “I have traveled a long road from the battlefield to the peace table.”

— Moshe Dayan

19. “It’s a democracy and if I am outvoted, I have to accept the majority decisions.”

— Moshe Dayan

20. “Take the American declaration of Independence. It contains no mention of territorial limits. We are not obliged to fix the limits of the State.”

— Moshe Dayan

21. “If we lose this war, I’ll just start another in my wife’s name.”

— Moshe Dayan

22. “Israel cannot afford to stand against the entire world and be denounced as the aggressor.”

— Moshe Dayan

23. “Soldiers of Israel, we have no aims of conquest. Our purpose is to bring to naught the attempts of the Arab armies to conquer our land.”

— Moshe Dayan

24. “It isn’t a secret that my heart is damaged. All the treatments and medications haven’t been effective.”

— Moshe Dayan

25. “Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood.”

— Moshe Dayan

26. “It lies upon the people’s shoulders to prepare for the war, but it lies upon the Israeli army to carry out the fight with the ultimate object of erecting the Israeli Empire.”

— Moshe Dayan

27. “We should demand his blood not from the Arabs of Gaza but from ourselves. Let us make our reckoning today.”

— Moshe Dayan

28. “I know that plans and reality may be two different things, but I think my demands on life are minimal.”

— Moshe Dayan

29. “It was in our power to cause the Arab governments to renounce the policy of strength toward Israel by turning it into a demonstration of weakness.”

— Moshe Dayan

30. “If I had to resign every time the Cabinet disagrees with me, I could not last as a Defense Minister one week.”

— Moshe Dayan

31. “In two cases I did not fulfill my role as defense minister, in that I did not stop things that I was sure should have been stopped.”

— Moshe Dayan

32. “I don’t think we should be a model family living in a model home.”

— Moshe Dayan

33. “When you accept our views we shall be in full agreement with you.”

— Moshe Dayan