Quotes about border
A collection of quotes on the topic of border, people, country, use.
Quotes about border
“Borders I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.”
Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002) Norwegian anthropologist and adventurer
“A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
“It's at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys.”
Emil Zátopek (1922–2000) Czech Olympic long-distance runner
Attributed in "Citius, Altius, Fortius" ("Swifter, Higher, Stronger"), an unsigned article from Khaleej Times, 8 August 2008 (Galadari Printing and Publishing Co.) http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/weekend/2008/August/weekend_August25.xml&section=weekend&col=
Golda Meir (1898–1978) former prime minister of Israel
"Iron Lady of Israeli politics" Thames TV (1970)
“I love forms beyond my own, and regret the borders between us”
Loren Eiseley (1907–1977) US philosopher (1907-1977)
“Breasts are a scandal because they shatter the border between motherhood and sexuality.”
Iris Marion Young (1949–2006) American philosopher
“When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.”
Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly
note: Probably coined by Otto T. Mallery (1881-1956) in his 1943 book Economic Union and Durable Peace (he doesn't attribute it to Bastiat, although Bastiat has written similar ideas)
Source: Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Frédéric Bastiat / Misattributed
https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/did-bastiat-say-when-goods-don-t-cross-borders-soldiers-will note: Misattributed
Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
“Borders are the worst invention ever made by politicians.”
Jean-Claude Juncker (1954) Luxembourgian politician
To the European Forum Alpbach. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/national-borders-are-the-worst-invention-ever-says-ec-chief-jean-claude-juncker-a7204006.html (22 August 2016) <br class="br">2016
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
It undermines an international order where the rights of peoples and nations are upheld and can’t simply be taken away by brute force.
2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru
Conversation, New York, April 12, 1969 PrabhupadaBooks.com http://prabhupadabooks.com/conversations/1969/apr/new_york/april/12/1969?d=1 <br class="br">Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: Violence and Dictatorship
Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India
The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)
“Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
p 2
Striking Thoughts (2000)
“I am easy-going right up to the borders of my self-interest.”
Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American academic
City Aphorisms, Sixth Selection (1989)
Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden (1946) King of Sweden
royalcorrespondent.com http://royalcorrespondent.com/2013/02/15/an-interview-with-his-majesty-king-carl-xvi-gustaf-of-sweden/
George Friedman (1949) American businessman and political scientist
Source: The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century (2009), p. 239
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)
Ibn Khaldun book Muqaddimah
Muqaddimah, Translated by Franz Rosenthal, pp.183-184, Princeton University Press, 1981.
Muqaddimah (1377)
“Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave.”
Joseph Hall (1574–1656) British bishop
Epistles, Decade III, epistle 2. Compare: "And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb./Our birth is nothing but our death begun", Edward Young, Night Thoughts, night v., line 718.
Theodore Roosevelt The Strenuous Life
1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), The Strenuous Life
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Speech on the floor of the US Senate (3 April 2006). "Obama Fence Statement" https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4652652/obama-fence-statement, starting at about 2:05. <br class="br">2006
Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director
Letter to the Chancellors of the European Universities. Collected Works, vol. 1, pt. 2 (1956, trans. 1968).
Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist
Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)
Juan Antonio Villacañas (1922–2001) Spanish poet, essayist and critic
“Revolt of a Newborn”, from Revolt of a Newborn (1973)
Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919–2013) Soviet and Russian small arms designer
"Kalashnikov, 90, decries 'criminal' use of rifle" by Dmitry Solovyov, at Reuters (26 October 2009) http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLQ148454
Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator
"The Brazil of North America" https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/the-brazil-of-north-america/ (July 18, 2014), Chronicles <br class="br">2010s
“A conquering army on the border will not be stopped by eloquence.”
Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany
Speech to North German Reichstag (24 September 1867)
1860s
Jascha Heifetz (1901–1987) Lithuanian violinist
Heifetz official web site http://www.jaschaheifetz.com/about/quotes.html
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: 1910s, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919), Ch. 18: Mathematics and Logic
Amos Oz (1939–2018) Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual
"Try a Little Tenderness" (interview) in Ha'aretz, March 17, 2000.
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
As quoted in The Guardian [London] (14 June 1989)
Post-presidency (1989–2004)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2016, United Nations Address (September 2016)
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1850s, Letter to Joshua F. Speed (1855)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2011, UN speech to General Assembly (September 2011)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Speech at AIPAC Policy Conference (4 June 2008) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91150432&ft=1&f=1102 <br class="br">2008
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2014, Remarks at Clinton Global Initiative (September 2014)
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, "If Slavery Is Not Wrong, Nothing Is Wrong" (1864)
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: Even in the matter of national defense there is such a labyrinth of committees and counsels and advisors that there is a tendency on the part of the average citizen to become confused and do nothing. I ask you to help strike the note that shall unite our people. As a people we must be united. If we are not united we shall slip into the gulf of measureless disaster. We must be strong in purpose for our own defense and bent on securing justice within our borders. If as a nation we are split into warring camps, if we teach our citizens not to look upon one another as brothers but as enemies divided by the hatred of creed for creed or of those of one race against those of another race, surely we shall fail and our great democratic experiment on this continent will go down in crushing overthrow. I ask you here tonight and those like you to take a foremost part in the movement a young men's movement for a greater and better America in the future.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: All of us, no matter from what land our parents came, no matter in what way we may severally worship our Creator, must stand shoulder to shoulder in a united America for the elimination of race and religious prejudice. We must stand for a reign of equal justice to both big and small. We must insist on the maintenance of the American standard of living. We must stand for an adequate national control which shall secure a better training of our young men in time of peace, both for the work of peace and for the work of war. We must direct every national resource, material and spiritual, to the task not of shirking difficulties, but of training our people to overcome difficulties. Our aim must be, not to make life easy and soft, not to soften soul and body, but to fit us in virile fashion to do a great work for all mankind. This great work can only be done by a mighty democracy, with these qualities of soul, guided by those qualities of mind, which will both make it refuse to do injustice to any other nation, and also enable it to hold its own against aggression by any other nation. In our relations with the outside world, we must abhor wrongdoing, and disdain to commit it, and we must no less disdain the baseness of spirit which lamely submits to wrongdoing. Finally and most important of all, we must strive for the establishment within our own borders of that stern and lofty standard of personal and public neutrality which shall guarantee to each man his rights, and which shall insist in return upon the full performance by each man of his duties both to his neighbor and to the great nation whose flag must symbolize in the future as it has symbolized in the past the highest hopes of all mankind.
Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist
Salon interview (2001)
Context: But just because I am a critic of Israeli policy — and in particular the occupation, simply because it is untenable, it creates a border that cannot be defended — that does not mean I believe the U. S. has brought this terrorism on itself because it supports Israel. I believe bin Laden and his supporters are using this as a pretext. If we were to change our support for Israel overnight, we would not stop these attacks.
I don't think this is what it's really about. I think it truly is a jihad, I think there is such a thing. There are many levels to Islamic rage. But what we're dealing with here is a view of the U. S. as a secular, sinful society that must be humbled, and this has nothing to do with any particular aspect of American policy. In my view, there can be no compromise with such a vision. And, no, I don't think we have brought this upon ourselves, which is of course a view that has been attributed to me.
Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations
Nobel lecture (2001)
Context: Today, in Afghanistan, a girl will be born. Her mother will hold her and feed her, comfort her and care for her — just as any mother would anywhere in the world. In these most basic acts of human nature, humanity knows no divisions. But to be born a girl in today's Afghanistan is to begin life centuries away from the prosperity that one small part of humanity has achieved. It is to live under conditions that many of us in this hall would consider inhuman.
I speak of a girl in Afghanistan, but I might equally well have mentioned a baby boy or girl in Sierra Leone. No one today is unaware of this divide between the world’s rich and poor. No one today can claim ignorance of the cost that this divide imposes on the poor and dispossessed who are no less deserving of human dignity, fundamental freedoms, security, food and education than any of us. The cost, however, is not borne by them alone. Ultimately, it is borne by all of us — North and South, rich and poor, men and women of all races and religions.
Today's real borders are not between nations, but between powerful and powerless, free and fettered, privileged and humiliated. Today, no walls can separate humanitarian or human rights crises in one part of the world from national security crises in another.
Theodore Roosevelt The Strenuous Life
1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), The Strenuous Life
Context: We must see that there is civic honesty, civic cleanliness, civic good sense in our home administration of city, State, and nation. We must strive for honesty in office, for honesty toward the creditors of the nation and of the individual; for the widest freedom of individual initiative where possible, and for the wisest control of individual initiative where it is hostile to the welfare of the many. But because we set our own household in order we are not thereby excused from playing our part in the great affairs of the world. A man's first duty is to his own home, but he is not thereby excused from doing his duty to the State; for if he fails in this second duty it is under the penalty of ceasing to be a freeman. In the same way, while a nation's first duty is within its own borders, it is not thereby absolved from facing its duties in the world as a whole; and if it refuses to do so, it merely forfeits its right to struggle for a place among the peoples that shape the destiny of mankind.
“Some were brilliant bordering on genius. Others, genius bordering on madness”
Erich Segal (1937–2010) American writer
Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls
Variant: You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl, Lia-Lia, caught in between the worlds. You’re a ghost with a beating heart. Soon you’ll cross the border and be with me. I’m so stoked. I miss you wicked.
Source: Wintergirls
Pablo Casals (1876–1973) Catalan cellist and conductor
As quoted in Joys and Sorrows : Reflections by Pablo Casals as told to Albert E. Kahn (1974) by Albert E. Kahn
“Terminus sniffed. “I guard borders. I don’t kill giants. It’s not in my job description.”
Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune
Source: The Son of Neptune
Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer
Source: A Wallflower Christmas
Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution
Source: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun
Ibrahim of Ghazna (1032–1099) sultan of the Ghaznavid Empire
Khwaja Mas'ud bin Sa'd bin Salman:Diwan-i-Salman in Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Vol. IV, pp. 518 ff.
Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
Immigration speech (31 August 2016)
Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/donald-trump-immigration-address-transcript-227614
James Ah Koy (1936) Fijian politician
Maiden speech in the Senate http://www.parliament.gov.fj/hansard/viewhansard.aspx?hansardID=165&viewtype=full, 8 December 2003 (excerpts), Speech in the Senate http://www.parliament.gov.fj/hansard/viewhansard.aspx?hansardID=245&viewtype=full, 26 August 2004 (excerpts)
Ross Perot (1930–2019) American businessman
1992 Presidential Debate, regarding the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Transcript http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/16/us/the-1992-campaign-transcript-of-2d-tv-debate-between-bush-clinton-and-perot.html
John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States
Good Morning America interview, after recent news that escalating insurgency and violent incidents had left around 2,500 people dead (over 700 of them civilians) since January of the same year in Afghanistan; 21 July 2008; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25799429/ <br class="br">2000s, 2008
Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA
Source: World of the Five Gods series, Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 281
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory
The Cosmic Philosophy, 1931
“Ferdinand had foresight and unbelievable luck. His success actually bordered on fiction.”
Imelda Marcos (1929) Former First Lady of the Philippines
As quoted in "Imelda and the Cash" by Werner Raffetseder in Saga magazine (April 1998).
Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz
Tusnádfürdő speech http://www.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/the-prime-minister-s-speeches/viktor-orban-s-presentation-at-the-27h-balvanyos-summer-open-university-and-student-camp, 26 July 2016
the 1948 borders <br class="br"> Sermons on Palestinian TV http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=563 February 2005
Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
18 October 2018 at 4:25am https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1052883467430694912 then 4:35am https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1052885781675687936 then 4:45am https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1052888451199262725 <br class="br">2010s, 2018, October
Harry Furniss (1854–1925) Irish artist and illustrator
On Lewis Carroll; pp.104-5.
"Confessions of a Caricaturist", vol. 1 (1901)
George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer
David Usborne, " Hitchens vs Galloway: The big debate http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article312968.ece", The Independent, September 16, 2005<br><br>During a debate with Christopher Hitchens, September 14, 2005
Daniel Pipes (1949) U.S. neoconservative columnist, author, counter-terrorism analyst, and scholar of Middle Eastern history
Fighting Militant Islam, Without Bias, City Journal http://www.danielpipes.org/articles/79, Autumn 2002.
János Esterházy (1901–1957) Czechoslovak member of Czechoslovak national parliament, russian nation politician and hungary nation polit…
Report for Hungarian government from May 1938.
International relationships
Source: [Deák, Ladislav, Ladislav Deák, Political profile of János Esterházy, Bratislava, Kubko Goral, 1995, 14, 80-967427-0-1]
Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)
Hugh Plat (1552–1608) writer
Source: Diverse new Sorts of Soylenot yet brought into any publique Use, 1594, p. 21-22; Cited in: Malcolm Thick, " Sir Hugh Plat and the Chemistry of Marling. http://www.bahs.org.uk/AGHR/ARTICLES/42n2a5.pdf" Agr. Hist. Rev 42 (1994): 156-157.
Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician
Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1985/nov/27/anglo-irish-agreement in the House of Commons (27 November 1985) on the Anglo-Irish Agreement. <br class="br">1980s
“Liberal hopefulness
Regards death as a mere border to an improving picture.”
William Empson (1906–1984) English literary critic and poet
"Ignorance of Death", line 11; cited from John Haffenden (ed.) The Complete Poems (London: Allen Lane, 2000) p. 78.
The Complete Poems
Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
2010s, 2016, April, Foreign Policy Speech (27 April 2016)
Russell Berman (1950) American academic
Source: Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007), p. 19.
Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) Indian politician, governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949
In another lecture in Madras now (Chennai) quoted in "Selected Letters, Gandhi -Sarojini Naidu Correspondence, Preface".
Poetry
Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
2010s, 2016, August, Speech in Jackson, Mississippi (August 24, 2016)
Mikael Harutyunyan (1946) Armenian general
Quoted in article "Azeri jet didn’t violate Armenian border." panarmenian.net [February 15, 2008]
“My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.”
Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady
Remarks to Banco Itau https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 (16 May 2013), WikiLeaks. <br class="br">Attributed