Cities Quotes - Page 8

• Imagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, New York or London. Imagine him on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting in a house and hearing a ring at the door-bell!

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  New York, Men, Doors

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1970). “The Works of Thomas Bailey Aldrich: Ponkapog papers. A sea turn, and other matters”

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• You're mistaken; men of sense often learn much from their enemies. Prudence is the best safeguard. This principle cannot be learnt from a friend: but an enemy extorts it immediately. It is from their foes and not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war. And this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties.

  Aristophanes

  Wall, Children, War

  Aristophanes (1812). “Comedies of Aristophanes: Viz: The Clouds, Plutus, The Frogs, The Birds”, p.434

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• The freedom of the city is not negotiable. We cannot negotiate with those who say, 'What's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable.'

  John F. Kennedy

  Negotiation, Mines, Negotiating

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• O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?

  Walt Whitman

  Dead Poets Society, Leaves Of Grass, Foolish

  Walt Whitman (2016). “Leaves of Grass”, p.261, Xist Publishing

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• Everyone is aware that tremendous numbers of people concentrate in city downtowns and that, if they did not, there would be no downtown to amount to anything--certainly not one with much downtown diversity.

  Jane Jacobs

  Numbers, People, Diversity

  Jane Jacobs (2016). “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, p.201, Vintage

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• Our cities with their swollen populations and cliff dwelling high-rise buildings are breeding places for loneliness. Neighborhoods crumble under the housing development bulldozers and families scatter in pursuit of jobs and professions everywhere. In a world of wheels, old and comfortable groupings of people have disappeared.

  Allan Fromme

  Jobs, Loneliness, Dwelling

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• I was able to work with the best musicians in Kansas City starting when I was really young

  Pat Metheny

  Kansas City, Musician, Able

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• Well, I work out three to four times a week, in a gym, which - thank God - is right in my building here in New York City. It's in the Reebok building, and it's got every kind of weightlifting equipment you can imagine, spread out over six floors, plus basketball courts and everything else. And because it's right in the building, there's no excuse.

  Regis Philbin

  Inspirational, Basketball, New York

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• I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Views, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.28, Cambridge University Press

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• How the city attracts all types and how the unwary must suffer from ignorance of its ways.

  Cyprian Ekwensi

  Ignorance, Suffering, Way

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• The Heavenly City outshines Rome beyond comparison. There, instead of victory, is truth; instead of high rank, holiness; instead of peace, felicity; instead of life, eternity.

  Saint Augustine

  Rome, Victory, Holiness

  Saint Augustine (2003). “City of God”, p.157, Penguin UK

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• A city man is a home anywhere, for all big cities are much alike. But a country man has a place where he belongs, where he always returns, and where, when the time comes, he is willing to die.

  Edward Abbey

  Country, Home, Men

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.56, RosettaBooks

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• General Washington had rather incautiously encamped the bulk of his army on Long Island - a large and plentiful district about two miles from the city of New York

  Mercy Otis Warren

  New York, Army, Islands

  Mercy Otis Warren (1805). “History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution: Interspersed with Biographical, Political and Moral Observations. In Three Volumes”, p.316

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• Technically, the city of Ankh-Morpork is a Tyranny, which is not always the same thing as a monarchy, and in fact even the post of Tyrant has been somewhat redefined by the incumbent, Lord Vetinari, as the only form of democracy that works. Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by reason of age or not being Lord Vetinari.

  Terry Pratchett

  Tyrants, Democracy, Age

  Stephen Briggs, Terry Pratchett (2015). “Unseen Academicals”, p.13, Oberon Books

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• The explosion would be just the right size to maximize the amount of paperwork your lab would face. If the explosion were smaller, you could potentially cover it up. If it were larger, there would be no one left in the city to submit paperwork to.

  Randall Munroe

  Labs, Faces, Size

  Randall Munroe (2014). “What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions”, p.40, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn - I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point - and that was it.

  Lana Del Rey

  New York, Good Friend, Fans

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• New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself. To think of 'living' there was to reduce the miraculous to the mundane; one does not 'live' at Xanadu.

  Joan Didion

  Dream, New York, Thinking

  FaceBook post by Joan Didion from Jul 25, 2011

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• I'll get out of this city alive, even if it kills me!

  Homer

  Alive, Kill Me, Ifs

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• Remember, too, that if your country has the greatest name in all the world, it is because she never bent before disaster; because she has expended more life and effort in war than any other city, and has won for herself a power greater than any hitherto known, the memory of which will descend to the latest posterity.

  Pericles

  Country, Memories, War

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• Does [America] realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross to countries and cities?

  Saddam Hussein

  Country, America, Doe

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• Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Lying, Feet, Mountain

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.23, Stanford University Press

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• There are some pop songs I hate but I can't get them out of my head. Our songs also have the standard pop format: Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, bad solo. All in all, I think we sound like The Knack and the Bay City Rollers being molested by Black Flag and Black Sabbath.

  Kurt Cobain

  Song, Hate, Thinking

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• Clouds out of control decoct anticipation. What use can any of us have for two moons? The miracle of order has run out and I am left in an unmiraculous city where anything may happen.

  Samuel R. Delany

  Running, Moon, Clouds

  "Dhalgren". Book by Samuel R. Delany, January, 1975.

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• There are only two rules. One is E. M. Forster's guide to Alexandria; the best way to know Alexandria is to wander aimlessly. The second is from the Psalms; grin like a dog and run about through the city.

  Jan Morris

  Running, Dog, Travel

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• I cant think of anything more humiliating than losing a ballgame to a guy who steals home on you. It happened to me one time against Kansas City. I had a 2-2 count on the hitter - and Amos Otis broke from third. The pitch was a ball and slid in safe. I felt like a nickel.

  Nolan Ryan

  Home, Thinking, Kansas City

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