Daily Inspiration Quote by Abba Eban

Politics as a perpetual focus group is not just undignified, Abba Eban suggests; it is disabling. The image is bodily and faintly comic: a statesman with his ear “permanently glued to the ground” becomes a human stethoscope, reduced to listening for tremors instead of shaping events. Eban’s wit lands because it turns a familiar democratic virtue - attentiveness to public feeling - into a posture so extreme it produces the opposite of leadership: no “elegance,” no “flexibility,” no capacity to pivot when history demands it.

The subtext is a critique of timidity disguised as responsiveness. “Ear to the ground” is usually praise for staying informed; “permanently glued” transforms it into obsession, even servility. Eban is defending a certain kind of statesmanship that requires verticality: the willingness to stand up, be seen, and take the hit when the crowd is anxious or divided. “Elegance of posture” isn’t mere vanity. It signals authority, coherence, a public narrative that others can follow. “Flexibility of movement” points to the harder paradox: you can’t be agile if you’re always crouching. Over-listening can freeze you into yesterday’s panic.

Context matters: Eban operated in the high-stakes theater of Israeli diplomacy, where speeches at the UN and negotiations with adversaries required both sensitivity to currents and the courage to resist them. The line warns that legitimacy can’t be crowdsourced in real time. A diplomat who only mirrors the mood forfeits the freedom to lead it.