Berlin Wall Quotes

• Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.

  John F. Kennedy

  Freedom, Men, Liberty

  Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a 'Berliner'), delivered 26 June 1963, West Berlin

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• 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.

  Luc Besson

  Wall, Mean, People

  Interview with Richard Jobson, www.theguardian.com. March 23, 2000.

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• The Berlin Wall wasn't the only barrier to fall after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Traditional barriers to the flow of money, trade, people and ideas also fell.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Money, Wall, War

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• General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

  Ronald Reagan

  Wall, Patriotic, Europe

  Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate, delivered 12 June 1987, West Berlin

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• 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.

  Salman Rushdie

  Wall, Powerful, Fall

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• A wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.

  John F. Kennedy

  Wall, War, Cold

  "Savage century". The Sunday Times, May 28, 2006.

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

  Lech Walesa

  Wall, Nice, Fall

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• [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.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Wall, Fall

  Source: time.com

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• The Berlin Wall is the defining achievement of socialism.

  George Will

  Wall, Achievement, Berlin

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• 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.

  David Cameron

  Wall, Healing, Cities

  "The speech that was the start of the end of David Cameron". Bloomberg speech, www.independent.co.uk. January 2013.

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• 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.

  Ian Bremmer

  Wall, Thinking, Identity

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• I grew up during the Cold War, when everything seemed very tenuous. For many years, right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall, I had vivid nightmares of nuclear apocalypse.

  Justin Cronin

  Wall, War, Fall

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• Socialism's results have ranged between the merely shabby and the truly catastrophic - poverty, strife, oppression and, on the killing fields of communism, the deaths this century of perhaps 100 million people. Against that doctrine was set a contrary, conservative belief in a law-governed liberty. It was this view which triumphed with the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. Since then, the Left has sought rehabilitation by distancing itself from its past.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Wall, Past, Views

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• 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. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.

  John F. Kennedy

  War, Europe, Issues

  1963 Address in Berlin's Rudolf Wilde Platz, 26 Jun, 22 months after the erection of the wall dividing the city.

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• The world has fundamentally changed. It fundamentally changed when the Berlin Wall came down and the 'evil empire' ceased to exist. We are engaged around the world whether we like it or not.

  Robert Foster Bennett

  Wall, Evil, Having Fun

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• Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

  Ronald Reagan

  Wall, Memorable, Europe

  Remarks at Brandenburg Gate, West Berlin, Germany, 12 June 1987

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• 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.

  Vladimir Kramnik

  Wall, Eye, Fighting

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• Life punishes those who come too late.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Too Late, Late

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• It's a different outlook, and one that I understand. When you are a former member of the Warsaw Pact, when you have lived behind the Berlin Wall, when you have experienced the communist systems that existed in these countries, for them, the West represents hope.

  Jean-Pierre Raffarin

  Country, Wall, Different

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• When the Berlin Wall came down the Americans cried, 'Victory,' and walked off the field.

  Paul Keating

  Wall, Victory, Fields

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The Berlin Wall go down, that was the most wonderful thing that could happen, absolutely. I celebrated with everybody in Berlin that day when the Wall was down.

  Nana Mouskouri

  Wall, Berlin, Wonderful

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• 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.

  Milton Friedman

  Wall, Book, Fall

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Ronald Reagan will be remembered for leading the United States during a time of tremendous international transition - the demise of the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall coming down, and the end of the Cold War

  Mary Landrieu

  Wall, War, United States

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• 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.

  Vladimir Putin

  Wall, Europe, Guilt

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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• The Soviet Union could not exist without the image of the empire. The image of the empire could not exist without the image of force. The USSR ended the moment the first hammer pounded the Berlin Wall.

  Boris Yeltsin

  Wall, Firsts, Hammers

  Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1994). “The View from the Kremlin”, HarperCollins

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