"We build too many walls and not enough bridges"
About this Quote
The subtext is almost scientific. Walls feel safe because they simplify reality into binaries: inside/outside, pure/tainted, us/them. Bridges accept complexity: they admit distance, risk, and the need for support. That’s a harder build. A bridge requires surveying, materials, maintenance, and trust that the other side is worth reaching. Newton’s genius was in seeing invisible forces (gravity) where others saw chaos; this sentence nudges us to notice the social equivalent: the unseen pulls between people and nations that don’t vanish just because you erect a barrier.
Contextually, attaching this to Newton carries a particular irony. His era was thick with walls of its own: sectarian conflict, class boundaries, emerging empires, intellectual gatekeeping. Scientific progress itself was a bridge project - the Royal Society and the early scientific method were attempts to cross from superstition and authority into shared evidence. Read that way, the line isn’t a soft plea for harmony. It’s a warning that building can be either defensive architecture or connective infrastructure, and that a society obsessed with fortifying its edges eventually forgets how to span its own gaps.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Newton, Isaac. (2026, January 14). We build too many walls and not enough bridges. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-build-too-many-walls-and-not-enough-bridges-31636/
Chicago Style
Newton, Isaac. "We build too many walls and not enough bridges." FixQuotes. January 14, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-build-too-many-walls-and-not-enough-bridges-31636/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We build too many walls and not enough bridges." FixQuotes, 14 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-build-too-many-walls-and-not-enough-bridges-31636/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.





