Quotes By Angela Merkel

When it comes to human dignity, we cannot make compromises.

We will be very persistent when it comes to enforcing freedom, justice, and self-determination on the European continent.

Climate change knows no borders. It will not stop before the Pacific islands and the whole of the international community here has to shoulder a responsibility to bring about a sustainable development.

Nobody in Europe will be abandoned. Nobody in Europe will be excluded. Europe only succeeds if we work together.

Freedom does not mean being free of something, but to be free to do something.

As far as an upper limit [on refugees] is concerned, my position is clear: I will not accept it.

Always be more than you appear and never appear to be more than you are.

I might bend, but I will NEVER break because it's in my nature as a strong woman.

I never underestimated myself. And I never saw anything wrong with ambition.

Anything that seems to be set in stone or inalterable can, indeed, change. In matters both large and small, it holds true that every change begins in the mind.

Don't forget that freedom is never something that can be taken for granted.

Remember that openness always involves risks.

A good compromise is one where everybody makes a contribution.

In East Germany, we always ran into boundaries before we were able to discover our own personal boundaries.

Whoever decides to dedicate their life to politics knows that earning money isn't the top priority.

Neither the chains of dictatorship nor the fetters of oppression can keep down the forces of freedom for long.

This multicultural approach, saying that we simply live side by side and live happily with each other has failed. Utterly failed.

The land of unlimited opportunity was for me, for a long time, impossible to reach. The wall, barbed wire and the order to shoot at those who tried to leave limited my access to the free world.

As a 7-year-old child, I saw the Wall being erected. No one - although it was a stark violation of international law - believed at the time that one ought to intervene militarily in order to protect citizens of the GDR and whole Eastern bloc, of the consequences of that - namely, to live in lack of freedom for many, many years.

The people in East Germany have lived through so many changes in the last 15 years like never before in the country, and they did this often with great enthusiasm. But in the West we also have a high degree of transformations.