Railroads Quotes

• A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Graduation, Senior, Education

  "Art of Communicating Ideas". Book by William Joseph Grace, p. 389, 1952.

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• Railroad iron is a magician's rod, in its power to evoke the sleeping energies of land and water.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sleep, Power, Land

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.293

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Black men built the railroads, not blue eyes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Eye, Men, Blue

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1976). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume XII: 1835-1862”, p.532, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of course, in our train of thought, we would all like to think we're on the right track, or at least the same railroad company as the right track.

  Criss Jami

  Thinking, Train Of Thought, Track

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.22, Criss Jami

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• If a railroad is bent, the train shall turn over; if a man's character is bent, he shall turn over just like that train.

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Character, Men, Bent

  6 Copy quote

• We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Environmental

  Walden ch. 2 (1854)

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

  Will Rogers

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  "The Graduation Speech I'd Give, if Anyone Asked" by Karina Bland, www.azcentral.com. June 03, 2015.

  297 Copy quote

  Show source

• A critic is a gong at a railroad crossing clanging loudly and vainly as the train goes by.

  Christopher Morley

  Religion, Gongs, Critics

  5 Copy quote

• Nothing was more up-to-date when it was built, or is more obsolete today, than the railroad station.

  Ada Louise Huxtable

  Today, Obsolete, Train Tracks

  9 Copy quote

• Great men are usually the products of their times and one of the men developed by these times takes rank with the greatest railroad leaders in history.

  John Moody

  Men, Leader, Products

  John Moody (1921). “The Railroad Builders: A Chronicle of the Welding of the States”

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• A private railroad car is not an acquired taste. One takes to it immediately.

  Eleanor Robson Belmont

  Money, Car, Taste

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  83 Copy quote

  Show source

• I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.

  Harriet Tubman

  Track, Lost, Underground Railroad

  Quoted in Lyde Cullen Sizer, Divided Houses (1992)

  156 Copy quote

  Show source

• RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Science, Purpose, Enabling

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.176, 谷月社

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the things the government can't do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt.

  Lee Iacocca

  Running, Government, Office

  57 Copy quote

• Railway termini are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return.

  E. M. Forster

  Travel, Adventure, Sunshine

  Howards End ch. 2 (1910)

  70 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.

  Harriet Tubman

  Women, Eight, Years

  Quoted in Lyde Cullen Sizer, Divided Houses (1992)

  550 Copy quote

  Show source

• Robots of the world, you are ordered to exterminate the human race. Do not spare the men. Do not spare the women. Preserve only the factories, railroads, machines, mines, and raw materials. Destroy everything else. Then return to work. Work must not cease.

  Karel Capek

  Men, Race, Robots

  "R.U.R". Play by Karel Capek, 1920.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A railroad is like a lie you have to keep building it to make it stand.

  Mark Twain

  Lying, Cowboy, Building

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.394, Courier Corporation

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• If there were a major earthquake in Los Angeles, with bridges and highways and railroads and airports all shut down and huge buildings collapsing, I don't care how much planning you do, the first 72 hours is going to be chaotic.

  Warren Rudman

  Airports, Bridges, Earthquakes

  6 Copy quote

• One glance proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that these unions (railroad craft unions) are exceedingly useful to the corporations; and to the extent that they serve the economic and political purposes of the corporations, they are the foes – and not the friends – of the working class.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Class, Political, Doubt

  6 Copy quote

• The Negro people of America... have cut our forests, tilled our fields, built our railroads, fought our battles, and in all of their trials they have manifested a simple faith, a grateful heart, a cheerful spirit, and an undivided loyalty .

  Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

  Loyalty, Grateful, Heart

  7 Copy quote

• Hog butcher for the world, Tool maker, stacker of wheat, Player with railroads and the nation's freight handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of big shoulders.

  Carl Sandburg

  Player, Cities, Chicago

  "Chicago" l. 1 (1916)

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Oh, the Irish were building the railroads down through Mexico, through Chihuahua. They finished the railroads when they finished out in the West Coast, and they went down and put the trains into Mexico.

  Anthony Quinn

  Mexico, West Coast, Down And

  24 Copy quote

• Sooner or later the Internet will become profitable. It's an old story played before by canals, railroads and automobiles.

  Paul Samuelson

  Stories, Internet, Canals

  18 Copy quote

• People are the common denominator of progress. So no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills,and the other familiar furniture of economic development. But we are coming to realize that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Education, Sea, People

  "Economic Development". Book by John Kenneth Galbraith. Chapter 2, 1962.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source