George F. Will Quotes

If the purpose of the wall was to destroy Berlin, Herr Ulbricht and his cohorts have erred sadly. Berlin is not only going to continue to exist - it's going to grow and grow and grow. Its ties to West Germany will not be severed.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

There is an iron curtain across Europe.

I was 14 when the wall came down, so I only ever knew about the GDR or experienced it as a kid. I lived very far away from it, and you only ever thought about the GDR when you saw the Olympics, because you were like, "How are they always winning?!"

I can understand the Chinese Wall: it was built as a defense against marauders. But a wall such as that in Berlin, built to prevent people from seeking freedom, is almost beyond comprehension.

Berlin has a uniquely haunting nature, symbolic of a problematic system that was created to oppress and divide a nation.

An iron curtain has descended over Europe.

I thought that communism, the tyranny of communism, was an abomination and I beseeched God to bring that terrible evil down and he did. It was a great triumph, it took awhile, but it happened.

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.

Shortly afterwards my father told me that he might be going into the Eastern Zone of Germany. At that time my own mind was closer to his than it had ever been before, because he also believed that they are at least trying to build a new world.

More than forty years of Communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe resulted in an unhappy and artificial division of Europe. It is this dark chapter of European history that we now have the opportunity to close.

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!

Russia is an Evil Empire.

I do not believe that Communism will overwhelm the free world.

… the unfortunate but inevitable connection between the word “socialism” and the unmitigated crucifixion of Civil Liberties in the East [Eastern Europe dominated by the Russian Communist Party.

This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom…. When you, the German people, tore down that wall—a wall that divided East and West; freedom and tyranny; fear and hope—walls came tumbling down around the world. From Kiev to Cape Town, prison camps were closed, and the doors of democracy were opened.

The only thing the East German system taught us was that we should never do it that way again.

I am one of those people who believes that the solution to the world's problems is to be found behind the Iron Curtain.

Certainly my parents were very political, so the whole Berlin Wall thing - and being a kid of the '80s - that's just something that's in your experience.

[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.

They [The Soviet Union] are the focus of evil in the modern world.

My life changed completely in 1989 with the fall of the wall.

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.

I graduated in 1989, and I'd focused almost entirely on the Soviet Union and communism ... so when the Berlin wall fell, I was, well, I was screwed.

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.