Abdel Nasser Quotes & Sayings

They defended the grains of sand in the desert to the last drop of their blood. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

If we look at Abdel Nasser in Egypt as an Arab leader, he was secular. — Maajid Nawaz

We are awaiting aggression by Israel and any supporters of Israel. We will make it a decisive battle and get rid of Israel once and for all ... This is the dream of every Arab. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

The age of isolation is gone. And gone are the days in which barbed wire served as demarcation lines, separating and isolating countries from one another. No country can escape looking beyond its boundaries to find the source of the currents which influence how it can live with others. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ... to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not of more declarations. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

Out of this unstable mix of technocracy and national security you have a nostalgia developing for colonialism or religion - atavistic in my opinion, but some people want them back. Sadat is the great example of that: he threw out the Russians, as well as everything else that represented Abdel Nasser, ascendant nationalism, and so forth - and said, "Let the Americans come." Then you have a new period of what in Arabic is called an infitah - in other words, an opening of the country to a new imperialism: technocratic management, not production but services - tourism, hotels, banking, etc. That's where we are right now. — Edward W. Said

What was taken by force, can only be restored by force. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

He who can not support himself, can not take his own decision. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

Events are not a matter of chance. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

There is no longer a way out of our present situation except by forging a road toward our objective, violently and by force, over a sea of blood and under a horizon blazing with fire. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

Rulers like Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser started subsidizing bread as a way to buy loyalty, or at least obedience, and this system became so pervasive that the Tunisian scholar Larbi Sadiki described countries who used it as dimuqratiyyat al-khubz - "democracies of bread." But the problem with this system of offering bread in exchange for genuine democracy is that it can never last - sooner or later, the bread will run out, and people will start demanding bread and roses too. — Annia Ciezadlo

We have to go along a road covered with blood. We have no other alternative. For us it is a matter of life or death, a matter of living or existing. We have to be ready to face the challenges that await us. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

I don't act; I react. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

Not one of our political spokespeople - the same is true of the Arabs since Abdel Nasser's time - ever speaks with self-respect and dignity of what we are, what we want, what we have done, and where we want to go. In the 1956 Suez War, the French colonial war against Algeria, the Israeli wars of occupation and dispossession, and the campaign against Iraq, a war whose stated purpose was to topple a specific regime but whose real goal was the devastation of the most powerful Arab country. And just as the French, British, Israeli, and American campaign against Gamal Abdel Nasser was designed to bring down a force that openly stated as its ambition the unification of the Arabs into a very powerful independent political force. — Edward W. Said

Fate does not play jokes. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

We will not accept any ... coexistence with Israel ... Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel ... The war with Israel is in effect since 1948. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood — Gamal Abdel Nasser

I have been a conspirator for so long that I mistrust all around me. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

People do not want words - they want the sound of battle - the battle of destiny. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

Our path to Palestine will not be covered with a red carpet or with yellow sand. Our path to Palestine will be covered with blood ... In order that we may liberate Palestine, the Arab nation must unite, the Arab armies must unite, and a unified plan of action must be established — Gamal Abdel Nasser

Power is not merely shouting aloud. Power is to act positively with all the components of power. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

I believe that we now have a duty to remove the aggressor from our land and to regain the Arab territory occupied by the Israelis. We can then engage in a clandestine struggle to liberate the land of Palestine, to liberate Haifa and Jaffa. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

Fate does not jest and events are not a matter of chance. There is no existence out of nothing. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

We're a sentimental people. We like a few kind words better than millions of dollars given in a humiliating way. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

We must fight our way to victory on a sea of blood and a horizon of fire. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

If the refugees return to Israel, Israel will cease to exist. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make the rest of us wonder at the possibility that we might be missing something. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

Within the Arab circle there is a role wandering aimlessly in search of a hero. For some reason it seems to me that this role is beckoning to us-to move, to take up its lines, put on its costumes and give it life. Indeed, we are the only ones who can play it. The role is to spark the tremendous latent strengths in the region surrounding us to create a great power, which will then rise up to a level of dignity and undertake a positive part in building the future of mankind. — Gamal Abdel Nasser