Robert Moses Quotes

• When you operate in an overbuilt metropolis, you have to hack your way with a meat ax.

  Robert Moses

  Meat, Way, Clean Slate

  "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro, (p. 849), 1974.

  60 Copy quote

• I raise my stein to the builder who can remove ghettos without removing people as I hail the chef who can make omelets without breaking eggs.

  Robert Moses

  Ghetto, Eggs, People

  "Robert Moses, Master Builder, is Dead at 92" by Paul Goldberger, archive.nytimes.com. July 30, 1981.

  63 Copy quote

• If the ends don't justify the means, then what does?

  Robert Moses

  Mean, Doe, Ends

  37 Copy quote

• Those who can, build. Those who can't, criticize.

  Robert Moses

  Criticize

  Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's State of the City Address, www.crainsdetroit.com. March 11, 2008.

  58 Copy quote

• You can draw any kind of picture you want on a clean slate and indulge your every whim in the wilderness in laying out a New Delhi, Canberra, or Brasilia, but when you operate in an overbuilt metropolis, you have to hack your way with a meat ax.

  Robert Moses

  Meat, Want, Way

  "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro, (p. 849), 1974.

  54 Copy quote

• Majorities, of course, start with minorities.

  Robert Moses

  Majority, Minorities, Courses

  19 Copy quote

• Critics build nothing.

  Robert Moses

  Critics

  Robert Moses (1956). “Working for the People: Promise and Performance in Public Service”

  22 Copy quote

• l have no fear of change as such and, on the other hand, no liking for it merely for its own sake.

  Robert Moses

  Change, Fear, Hands

  "Aircraft Carrier: The Commission Comes To a Fork In the Ocean". Remarks by Commissioner Isaac C. Hunt, Jr., U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, at the Practicing Law Institute's 30th Annual Institute on Securities Regulation, New York, November 05, 1998.

  30 Copy quote

• Every true New Yorker believes with all his heart that when a New Yorker is tired of New York, he is tired of life.

  Robert Moses

  New York, Believe, Tired

  35 Copy quote

• [It is] the most hideous waterfront structure ever inflicted on a city by a combination of architectural conceit and official bad taste. the Cathedral of Asphalt.

  Robert Moses

  Cities, Taste, Architecture

  34 Copy quote

• I have long since abandoned the notion that higher education is essential to either success or happiness. Hothouses of learning do not always grow anything edible.

  Robert Moses

  Long, Essentials, Abandoned

  27 Copy quote

• Unfortunately there are still people in other areas who regard New York City not as part of the United States, but as a sort of excrescence fastened to our Eastern shore and peopled by the less venturesome waves of foreigners who failed to go West to the genuine American frontier.

  Robert Moses

  New York, Cities, People

  Robert Moses (1956). “Working for the People: Promise and Performance in Public Service”

  31 Copy quote

• Here the skeptic finds chaos and the believer further evidence that the hand that made us is divine.

  Robert Moses

  Hands, Chaos, Divine

  Robert Moses (1970). “Public Works: A Dangerous Trade”

  33 Copy quote

• He continued to be an infant long after he ceased to be a prodigy.

  Robert Moses

  Long, Intellectual, Intelligence

  27 Copy quote

• If you elect a matinee idol mayor, you're going to have a musical comedy administration.

  Robert Moses

  Idols, Musical, Administration

  27 Copy quote

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