Theodor Herzl Quotes

Author Image

Theodor Herzl

Profession : Journalist

Birth : May 2, 1860

But I am convinced that those Jews who stand aside today with a malicious smile and with their hands in their trousers' pockets will also want to dwell in our beautiful home.

Theodor Herzl

What We want is to make it possible for our unfortunate people to live a life of industry for it is by steady work alone that we hope for our physical and moral rehabilitation. For this reason above all we have undertaken to rally our people around our ideal.

Theodor Herzl

I prefer being penetrated by iron to seeing Palestine is loose.

Theodor Herzl

Philanthropic colonization is a failure. National colonization will succeed.

Theodor Herzl

Zionism demands a publicly recognized and legally secured homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people. This platform is unchangeable.

Theodor Herzl

It goes without saying that the Jewish people can have no other goal than Palestine and that, whatever the fate of the proposition may be, our attitude toward the land of our fathers is and shall remain unchangeable.

Theodor Herzl

Palestine is our unforgettable historic home. The very name would be a force of marvelous potency for summoning our people together.

Theodor Herzl

Nothing prevents us from being and remaining the exponents of a united humanity, when we have a country of our own. To fulfill this mission we do not have to remain literally planted among the nations who hate and despise us.

Theodor Herzl

If anyone thinks that Jews can steal into the land of their fathers, he is deceiving either himself or others. Nowhere is the coming of Jews so promptly noted as in the historic home of the Jews, for the very reason that it is the historic home.

Theodor Herzl

Those of us who are today prepared to hazard our lives for the cause would regret having raised a finger, if we were able to organize only a new social system and not a more righteous one.

Theodor Herzl

The spirit in which the offer was made must of necessity contribute to improving and alleviating the situation of the Jewish people without our renouncing one iota of the great principles upon which our movement is based.

Theodor Herzl

But we wish to give the Jews a Homeland. Not by dragging them ruthlessly out of their sustaining soil, but rather by removing them carefully, roots and all, to a better terrain.

Theodor Herzl

It is true that we aspire to our ancient land. But what we want in that ancient land is a new blossoming of the Jewish spirit.

Theodor Herzl

Our first object is... the obtaining of sovereignty, assured by international law, over a portion of the globe sufficiently large to satisfy our just requirements.

Theodor Herzl

The land which the Society of Jews will have secured by international law must naturally be privately owned.

Theodor Herzl

Let sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the earth's surface large enough to satisfy our rightful requirements as a nation. The rest we shall manage for ourselves.

Theodor Herzl

The Jews had, as a matter of fact, long been all along the most ingenious entrepreneurs. It was only our own future that we had never built upon a business basis.

Theodor Herzl

We are organizing Jewry for its coming destiny.

Theodor Herzl

Our opponents maintain that we are confronted with insurmountable political obstacles, but that may be said of the smallest obstacle if one has no desire to surmount it.

Theodor Herzl

Economic distress, political pressure, and social obloquy already drive us from our homes and from our graves. The Jews are already constantly shifting from place to place.

Theodor Herzl