Quotes About Walls & Borders


"Every Westerner is jubilating that the Berlin Wall has fallen. Something worse than the Berlin Wall is in Palestine; and nobody is talking about it." - Yahya Jammeh

"We build too many walls and not enough bridges." - Isaac Newton

Paraphrasing the classic anti-war song of Edwin Starr, I kept asking myself Walls, what are they good for? 

Paraphrasing Starr - Walls: What are they good for? Absolutely Nothin'.

"We have a long way to go before we are able to hear the voices of everyone on earth, but I believe that providing voices and building bridges is essential for the World Peace we all wish for." - Joichi Ito

"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope." - Maya Angelou

"Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions." - Paulo Coelho

"There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect." - Ronald Reagan

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." - Rumi

"Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures." - John F. Kennedy

"As we grow in our consciousness, there will be more compassion and more love, and then the barriers between people, between religions, between nations will begin to fall. Yes, we have to beat down the separateness." - Ram Dass

"When the wind rises, some people build walls. Others build windmills." - Chinese proverb

"A world without walls is the only sustainable world. . . . If the world is dominated by people who believe that their races, their religions, their ethnic differences are the most important factors, then a huge number of people will perish in this century." - Bill Clinton

"In a time of tumultuous change we have to remain confident and look to the positive results, and decide which walls should be destroyed and which should be built." - Mikhail Gorbachev (1989)

The laurel-tree grew large and strong,
Its roots went searching deeply down;
It split the marble walls of Wrong,
And blossomed o'er the Despot's crown.
Richard Hengist Horne

"Peaceful circulation has been interrupted by barbed wire and concrete blocks. For a city or a people to be truly free, they must have the secure right, without economic, political or police pressure, to make their own choices and live their own lives." - John F. Kennedy (1961)

"We will prove to the world that we believe in peacefully "tearing down the walls" instead of arbitrarily building them." - John F. Kennedy

"The fence and the boundary line are the symbols of the spirit of justice. They set the limits upon each man's interest to prevent one from taking advantage of the other." - Reinhold Niebuhr

"The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down." - Barack Obama, Berlin, July 24, 2009

"Life is a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors."  - Eugene O'Neill

Pope Francis – interview Sept 2015:

  • Asked about barriers being but up in Europe to stop the influx of migrants, the pope said: "All walls collapse, today, tomorrow or after 100 years, but they will collapse. Walls are not a solution."
  • He said that while it was true that Europe was struggling in the face of a refugee crisis, the solution had to be found through dialogue. "Barriers last a short time or a long time, but the problem remains and with it, more hatred."

Asked about barriers being but up in Europe to stop the influx of migrants, the pope said: "All walls collapse, today, tomorrow or after 100 years, but they will collapse. Walls are not a solution."

He said that while it was true that Europe was struggling in the face of a refugee crisis, the solution had to be found through dialogue. "Barriers last a short time or a long time, but the problem remains and with it, more hatred.

Amanda Verdery Young