Best Berlin Wall Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, historians have become both more accurate and more honest—fractionally more brave, one might say—about that 'other' cleansing of the regions and peoples that were ground to atoms between the upper and nether millstones of Hitlerism and Stalinism. One of the most objective chroniclers is Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University. In his view, it is still 'Operation Reinhardt,' or the planned destruction of Polish Jewry, that is to be considered as the centerpiece of what we commonly call the Holocaust, in which of the estimated 5.7 million Jewish dead, 'roughly three million were prewar Polish citizens.' We should not at all allow ourselves to forget the millions of non-Jewish citizens of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and other Slav territories who were also massacred. But for me the salient fact remains that anti-Semitism was the regnant, essential, organizing principle of all the other National Socialist race theories. It is thus not to be thought of as just one prejudice among many.”

Source: Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Auch wenn zwei Staaten in Deutschland existieren, sind sie doch füreinander nicht Ausland; ihre Beziehungen zueinander können nur von besonderer Art sein." ("Even though two states in Germany exist, they are not foreign countries to each other—their relations with each other can only be of a special kind.") First Inaugural Address as West German Chancellor, October 28, 1969”

Politics Germany Cold War Diplomacy Berlin Wall East Germany Iron Curtain West Germany Political Relationships

Author:Willy Brandt

“Kids in tje East had also grown up with a genuine sense of fear that the world might actually come to an end during their lifetime. That it probably would in fact. For some this fueled nihilistic feelings - one reason Toster from Die Anderen, for instance, never got deeply political was because he stopped giving a shit.”

Punk Cold War Berlin Berlin Wall East Germany Ddr Gdr East Berlin

Book:Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Source: Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

“a thought she'd once had about Lamb was that when they'd pulled the Wall down he'd built himself another, and had been living behind it ever since”

Boundaries Spy Secretive Berlin Wall Defensive Secret Agent Lack Of Trust Self Isolation Putting Up Walls

Book:Real Tigers

Source: Real Tigers

“Through Jimi Hendrix's music you can almost see the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and of Martin Luther King Junior, the beginnings of the Berlin Wall, Yuri Gagarin in space, Fidel Castro and Cuba, the debut of Spiderman, Martin Luther King Junior’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, Ford Mustang cars, anti-Vietnam protests, Mary Quant designing the mini-skirt, Indira Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister of India, four black students sitting down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina, President Johnson pushing the Civil Rights Act, flower children growing their hair long and practicing free love, USA-funded IRA blowing up innocent civilians on the streets and in the pubs of Great Britain, Napalm bombs being dropped on the lush and carpeted fields of Vietnam, a youth-driven cultural revolution in Swinging London, police using tear gas and billy-clubs to break up protests in Chicago, Mods and Rockers battling on Brighton Beach, Native Americans given the right to vote in their own country, the United Kingdom abolishing the death penalty, and the charismatic Argentinean Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. It’s all in Jimi’s absurd and delirious guitar riffs.”

Martin Luther King Jr Berlin Wall I Have A Dream Speech Fidel Castro Kennedy Assassination Sixties Culture Jimi Hendrix Mini Skirt Yuri Gagarin

Book:Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

Source: Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“Putin was a former KGB intelligence officer who’d been stationed in East Germany at the Dresden headquarters of the Soviet secret service. Putin has said in interviews that he dreamed as a child of becoming a spy for the communist party in foreign lands, and his time in Dresden exceeded his imagination. Not only was he living out his boyhood fantasy, he and his then-wife also enjoyed the perks of a borderline-European existence. Even in communist East Germany, the standard of living was far more comfortable than life in Russia, and the young Putins were climbing KGB social circles, making influential connections, networking a power base. The present was bright, and the future looked downright luminous. Then, the Berlin wall fell, and down with it crashed Putin’s world. A few days after the fall, a group of East German protestors gathered at the door of the secret service headquarters building. Putin, fearing the headquarters would be overrun, dialed up a Red Army tank unit stationed nearby to ask for protection. A voice on the other end of the line told him the unit could not do anything without orders from Moscow. And, “Moscow is silent,” the man told Putin. Putin’s boyhood dream was dissolving before his eyes, and his country was impotent or unwilling to stop it. Putin despised his government’s weakness in the face of threat. It taught him a lesson that would inform his own rule: Power is easily lost when those in power allow it to be taken away. In Putin’s mind, the Soviet Union’s fatal flaw was not that its authoritarianism was unsustainable but that its leaders were not strong enough or brutal enough to maintain their authority. The lesson Putin learned was that power must be guarded with vigilance and maintained by any means necessary.”

Power Russia Putin Authoritarianism Berlin Wall Vladimir Putin

Book:No: No

Source: No: No

“Il me dit aussi que de nombreuses parties du mur de Berlin sont détruites petit à petit pour faire place aux constructions modernes. Va-t-on se souvenir du passé ? La preuve que non, aujourd'hui encore, d'autres murs sont construits.”

Wall Berlin Wall Mur Mur De Berlin

Book:#Love(ly) Story (Lovely Projets)

Source: #Love(ly) Story (Lovely Projets)

“Walls in people's heads are sometimes more durable than walls made of concrete blocks.”

Berlin Wall Inflexibility

Book:Erinnerungen

Source: Erinnerungen

“In hindsight, it's seen as inevitable that the two Germany's would reunite. But none of the people who had laid the groundwork for the fall-those who had started the tremors and endured the security forces' brutality-envisioned a unified Germany. Those people had sacrificed their places in society for the chance to form a new one, something different and distinct, an independent East Germany built form scratch. The hadn't looked to the West for inspiration before, and none of them looked to the West for salvation now that the border was open.”

Punk Berlin Berlin Wall Counter Culture Ddr Gdr East Berlin

Book:Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Source: Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

“The ethos of East Berlin punk infused the city with a radical egalitarianism and a DIY approach to maintaining independence-to conjuring up the world you want to live in regardless of the situation or surroundings.”

Punk Berlin Berlin Wall Diy Ddr Gdr East Berlin

Book:Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Source: Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

“She just wanted to be herself, and doing, saying, reading and writing the things that would have made her feel like herself were all verboten.”

Punk Berlin Berlin Wall Ddr Gdr East Berlin No Future

Book:Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Source: Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

“To this day, I attempt to walk through walls, real and imagined, external and internal. Sometimes in the midst of stress, insanity, wannabe dictators, wars, cruelty, injustice, greed, quarantines, pandemic viruses, I think back to those days along these roads. In my mind, I have never stopped walking.”

Peace Travel Activism Cold War World Peace International Relations Berlin Wall Iron Curtain

Book:Walking through the Wall

Source: Walking through the Wall

“I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting . . . it was the start of a new Arab world.. The Berlin Wall has fallen.”

People World Saws Wall Iraq Fallen Voting Cynical Cynicism Berlin Cynic Arab World Berlin Wall

Author:Walid Jumblatt

“I might have arguments with the size of Reagan's military buildup, but given the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, staying ahead of the Soviets militarily seemed a sensible thing to do. Pride in our country, respect for our armed services, a healthy appreciation for the dangers beyond our borders, an insistence that there was no easy equivalence between East and West--in all this I had no quarrel with Reagan. And when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, I had to give the old man his due, even if I never gave him my vote.”

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

“Complaints about the social irresponsibility of the intellectual typically concern the intellectual's tendency to marginalize herself, to move out from one community by interior identification of herself with some other community - for example, another country or historical period... It is not clear that those who thus marginalize themselves can be criticized for social irresponsibility. One cannot be irresponsible toward a community of which one does not think of oneself as a member. Otherwise runaway slaves and tunnelers under the Berlin Wall would be irresponsible.”

“More than one branch of the avant-garde, claiming to break with the bourgeois vision and mode of production, remains tied to it in spite of its denials and ex-communications. We are far from having overcome bourgeois thought or practices, despite the socialist "intermission" between the Russian revolution and the collapse of the Berlin wall. The avant-garde has lost its radical nature. On the other hand, "bourgeois theatre" is sometimes subtle enough to flirt with the avant-garde or to make "intelligent boulevard theatre.”

“At some point he seemed to lose all confidence trying to break down the Berlin Wall. He was still fighting as only Kasparov can, but I could see it in his eyes that he knew he wasn't going to win one of these games.”

Trying Stills Eye Fighting Games Winning Loses Break Wall His Eyes Breaking Down Berlin Berlin Wall

Author:Vladimir Kramnik

“I remember when the Berlin Wall fell and suddenly intractable problems get solved.”

Problem Remember Wall Remember When Berlin Berlin Wall

Author:Lucy Walker

“It was the first female-style revolution: no violence and we all went shopping.”

Firsts Violence Style Revolution Wall Female Shopping Berlin Wall

Author:Gloria Steinem

“So at last the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement and took over Greenpeace so that my friends who founded it left within a year because they'd captured it. Now the apotheosis is at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world.”

World Years Hands Government Lasts Left Movement Wall My Friends Environmental Communist Captured Berlin World Government Berlin Wall Greenpeace Apotheosis

Author:Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

“The fall of the Berlin Wall did more for the progress of freedom than all of the books written by myself or Friedrich Hayek or others.”

Book Fall Progress Written Wall Berlin Berlin Wall Hayek Friedrich Hayek

Author:Milton Friedman

“I have a fear of nuclear annihilation. I'm a child of the cold war: I didn't live more than 10 miles from a major WarPac nuclear target until the Berlin Wall came down and the CW ended. Knowing you can die horribly at any moment because of decisions made by alien intelligences thousands of miles away who don't even know you exist - there's something Lovecraftian about that, isn't there?”

Knows Children Made War Moments Dies Decision Knowing Wall Cold Majors Down And Nuclear Miles Aliens Target Cold War Berlin Annihilation Miles Away Decisions Made Berlin Wall

Author:Charles Stross

“The Berlin Wall is the defining achievement of socialism.”

Wall Achievement Socialism Defining Berlin Berlin Wall

Author:George Will

“We had the Berlin Wall; we had walls everywhere. But we always looked at the wall as kind of like the outside of the wall is the enemy. Are we looking at Mexico as the enemy? No, it's not. These are our trading partners.”

Kind Enemy Wall Partners Mexico Trading Berlin Berlin Wall Trading Partners

Author:Arnold Schwarzenegger

“"Contemporary art" for me is a kind of historical term that describes the 40 years between the Berlin Wall going up and then coming down. I'm not sure who will come up with a better term to describe art, but I think contemporary art is actually done for.”

Thinking Years Kind Art Done Term Wall Art Is Historical Come Up Contemporary Not Sure Berlin Contemporary Art Berlin Wall

Author:Liam Gillick

“The fall of the Berlin Wall really demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that there was a bad system, and what subsequently happened in the Soviet Union, that that system was a failure.”

Fall Doubt Happened Wall Shadow Unions Soviet Soviet Union Berlin Berlin Wall

Author:Milton Friedman

“I think graffiti is part of Berlin culture. You think about what the Berlin wall meant and how visible that was in everyone's life. How it was a part of their very identity.”

Thinking Culture Identity Wall Visible Berlin Graffiti Berlin Wall

Author:Ian Bremmer

“There was a moment when the Berlin Wall came down and some people felt, "Oh capitalism won. That's the ideology we can believe in now."”

People Believe Moments Felt Wall Capitalism Down And Ideology Berlin Berlin Wall

Author:Matthew Specktor

“It's soul force that removed the English from India. It's soul force that brought down the Berlin Wall. It's soul force that gave life to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s struggle for civil rights.”

Soul Force Struggle Rights Wall Kings India Civil Rights Drs Luther Berlin Berlin Wall Dr Martin Luther King Soul Force

Author:Marianne Williamson

“As one looks back, one sees that the fall of the Berlin Wall opened the door to three developments - the Eurozone, which was crafted around German unification, the free movement of peoples within Europe, particularly people from the new democracies of Eastern Europe, and, more broadly, it opened the door to globalization.”

People Looks Fall Three Democracy Doors Movement Wall Development Europe Eastern Globalization Berlin Eastern Europe Unification Berlin Wall Eurozone Free Movement

Author:Timothy Garton Ash

“When the Berlin Wall fell and suddenly all those countries had burgeoning democracies, women were still being left out. The big turning point, about ten years ago, was moving from a notion of empowering women to actually looking at where you can make the most difference, and it's in a girl's life.”

Years Stills Country Bigs Moving Girl Left Differences Democracy Wall Ten Years Ago Notion Empowering Empowering Women Berlin Turning Points Left Out Berlin Wall

Author:Kathy Calvin

“From the beginning, we failed to overcome Europe's division. The Berlin Wall fell, but invisible walls were moved to the East of Europe. This has led to mutual misunderstandings and assignments of guilt. They are the cause of all crises ever since.”

Causes Wall Europe Overcoming Crisis Moved Guilt East Invisible Mutual Division Misunderstanding Berlin Assignments Berlin Wall

Author:Vladimir Putin

“President Bush Sr. and Secretary Baker, way back when, told Gorbachev, "We are not going to advance NATO into Eastern Europe. We're not going to - we're not going to advance NATO into East Germany, if you allow the unification of Germany." Where is that pledge? Where is the logic behind a military alliance, devised in the time of communism, before the Berlin Wall fell, now being in the Ukraine, in Poland, in Estonia, in Latvia and Lithuania? I don't understand.”

“[Fall of the Berlin Wall] is a reminder that the commitment of the United States, to Europe is enduring and it's rooted in the values we share; our commitment to democracy, our commitment to rule of law, our commitment to the dignity of all people in our own countries and around the world.”

People World Country States Law Values Fall United United States Democracy Share Wall Commitment Europe Dignity Endure Around The World Rooted Reminders Berlin Rule Of Law Berlin Wall

Author:Barack Obama

“There was a time, with the Berlin Wall down, that [it looked as if] the UN finally could do what it was set up to do, the rivalry between the two camps would dissipate, and we could all co-operate. And then, of course, Iraq came and blew it all apart. These upheavals will always take place in the world, and the design and construct of the UN ideally should be such that it can deal with these upheavals, and possibly influence them, and survive and thrive, but it doesn't work out that way, because as an organisation we are so dependent on the same member states.”

Ifs World Way Should Two States Courses Deals Influence Design Wall Members Iraq Work Out Dependent Thrive Camps Constructs Berlin Organisation Places In The World Rivalry Upheaval Berlin Wall

Author:Kofi Annan

“There are many people in the world who really don't understand-or say they don't-what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!”

People World Issues Communism Communist Cold War Berlin Free World Berlin Wall German History

Author:John F. Kennedy

“I know it feels like two steps forward and one step back, but we are making progress. In my lifetime, I have lived through one World War, I have lived through the end of Apartheid in South Africa, the pulling down of the Berlin Wall. I have experienced what I never thought I would have experienced, which is a pretty workable peace in Northern Ireland, and I experienced a unified Europe - until the Conservative government got its hands on the idea that in order to appease a few back-benchers they would hold a referendum, what a disastrous idea.”

“I tell you, my fellow Americans, that if we learned anything from the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the governments in Eastern Europe, even a totally controlled society cannot resist the winds of change that economics and technology and information flow have imposed in this world of ours. That is not an option. Our only realistic option is to embrace these changes and create the jobs of tomorrow.”

World Fall Technology Wall Tomorrow Embrace Realistic Eastern Berlin Wall

Author:William J. Clinton

“We are living in a world in which developments are harder to predict and one that has become more uncertain. In such a world, you must be prepared for the unpredictable. Nobody predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall or the Arab Spring.”

World Fall Wall Spring Be Prepared Unpredictable Berlin Wall

Author:Jens Stoltenberg

“We always seem to be surprised by events, especially by catastrophes, but also by wonderful events. Look at 1990, the year that the Soviet Union collapsed and apartheid in South Africa collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down. I don't know anyone who foresaw those events. It seems to me that as a species we are constantly trying to adapt ourselves to the unexpected. In the meantime, we talk as if we are in control, and we're not. This seems to me to be the truth about the twentieth century.”

Trying Wonderful Wall Unexpected Soviet South Africa Catastrophe Soviet Union Apartheid Berlin Wall

Author:Doris Lessing

“Conservatives recognize there's gonna be winners and losers. The communists say that's not right. There shouldn't be any losers, and they set about trying to create circumstances where people think nobody will lose. But everybody loses under communism. They eventually have to build walls around countries to keep people in, as in the Berlin Wall.”

People Thinking Trying Country Wall Circumstances Communism Winner Communist Loser Berlin Wall

Author:Rush Limbaugh

“This coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Europe coming closer together, and nightlife and techno and ecstasy culture seemed like a very powerful panEuropean movement.”

Together Fall Culture Powerful Wall Ecstasy Very Powerful Berlin Wall

Author:Wolfgang Tillmans

“As I've watched the Berlin Wall come down, the cry for freedom in China, and the eastern bloc nations, I rejoice, because I see the bankruptcy of Marxist-Leninism, socialism in this world.”

World Cry Wall Socialism Rejoice Eastern Bankruptcy Berlin Wall

Author:Jerry Falwell

“The legacy of Ronald Reagan will live on forever. I, of course, had the wonderful opportunity of working with him and getting to know him personally. A more wonderful person you couldn't meet. I think the coming down of the Berlin Wall will always live in infamy. I treasure his friendship and appreciate so much what he did for me personally and for the issue of reducing gun violence.”

Thinking Opportunity Forever Violence Wonderful Wall Gun Appreciate Legacy Infamy Berlin Wall

Author:Sarah Brady

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

“I'm not a prophet, but I always thought it was natural for dictatorships to fall. I remember in 1989, two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, had you said it was going to happen no one would have believed you. The system seemed powerful and unbreakable. Suddenly overnight it blew away like dust.”

Said Two Happens Remember Fall Natural Powerful Wall Months Dust Prophet Dictatorship Berlin Two Months Unbreakable Berlin Wall

Author:Salman Rushdie

“It's always the small people who change things. It's never the politicians or the big guys. I mean, who pulled down the Berlin wall? It was all the people in the streets. The specialists didn't have a clue the day before.”

People Mean Bigs Guy Streets Wall Politician Clue Berlin Specialists Berlin Wall Big Guys

Author:Luc Besson

“The fall of the Berlin Wall makes for nice pictures. But it all started in the shipyards.”

Fall Nice Wall Berlin Berlin Wall Nice Picture

Author:Lech Walesa

“After the Berlin Wall came down I visited that city and I will never forget it. The abandoned checkpoints. The sense of excitement about the future. The knowledge that a great continent was coming together. Healing those wounds of our history is the central story of the European Union.”

Stories Together Forget Cities Healing Wall Unions Wounds Excitement Never Forget Abandoned Continents Forget It Berlin European Union Coming Together Berlin Wall Checkpoints

Author:David Cameron

“He was a commander in the Russian army at a time when the Russians were our enemies and still part of the Soviet Union . This wasn't very long ago, Alex.The collapse of communism. It was only in 1989 that the Berlin Wall came down." She stopped. "I suppose none of this means very much to you." "Well, it wouldn't," Alex said. "I was only two years old.”

Years Wells Mean Long Said Stills Two Enemy Wall Army Unions Communism Two Years Soviet Collapse Long Ago Soviet Union Commanders Alex Berlin Two Year Olds Berlin Wall

Author:Anthony Horowitz

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Berlin Wall Quotes