Good fences make good neighbors.

[neoteric]

Could you tell me what it means? Thanks.

[StuDapples]

I've always thought it meant don't get too involved in your neighbours' problems, otherwise your friendship will suffer.

[dag]

I believe Robert Frost was being ironic in his poem "Mending Wall" in which the line "Good fences make good neighbors" originates. The neighbor in the poem is fond of the saying. And the narrator himself questions it. The wall represents the barriers we put between us and those who are different from us. An there is something [perhaps in nature] "that doesn't love a wall" Read "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost. It's an excellent poem and with the many journalists using the line "Good fences make good neighbors" in reference to the current escallation in the Middle East Conflict it is apropos.