Railroads Quotes - Page 4

• Like the railroads that brought us together in the 19th century, these trails will bring us together in the 20th and 21st centuries. (at launch of the National Millennium Trails Program, 1999)

  Hillary Clinton

  Together, Program, Century

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• Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.

  Henry David Thoreau

  New York, Mean, Texas

  1854 Walden, or Life in the Woods,'Economy'.

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• Harriet Tubman fought American slavery single handed and was a pioneer in that organized effort known as the Underground Railroad.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Effort, Pioneers, Slavery

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• Disney World?” Ari felt like his head was about to explode. “Disney World?” His gravelly voice rose into a harsh shriek. “They’re not on vacation! They’re on the run! They’re running for their lives! Death is following them like a bullet, and they’re on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad?

  James Patterson

  Running, Vacation, Voice

  James Patterson (2006). “School's Out--Forever: A Maximum Ride Novel”, p.112, Hachette UK

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• I would speculate that a critical mass of the population has to internalize a middle class outlook first. International aid experience has demonstrated many times that just building railroads doesn't get you there. You need people ready to sue them.

  Charles R. Morris

  Class, People, Population

  Interview with Bob Morris, bobmorris.biz. December 17, 2012.

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• The ability to rebound is in inverse proportion to the distance your house is from the nearest railroad tracks.

  Don Meyer

  Basketball, Distance, Track

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• In the railroads, some people read clearly printed departure signs and then proceed to ask several times what they say. On airplanes, they demand things they know they cannot have. In their cars, they load up, drive away and then suddenly realize they don't know where they're going.

  Lucinda Franks

  Airplane, Car, People

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• High-speed trains in Japan can now reach 375 mph - twice as fast as any public transit train in the United States. America's railroads were once the envy of the world. Today they are in disrepair and we are falling further and further behind the rest of the world. We need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, including rail. When we do that we not only make our country more productive and efficient, we create millions of new jobs.

  Bernie Sanders

  Country, Jobs, Fall

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• Some years later I met Queen Elizabeth II, in our capital Ottawa at a Canada Day celebration. David Foster and I were doing the show and we both met her afterwards. She told me how much she loved the Canadian Railroad Trilogy. She looked at me and said, "oh, that song", and then said again, "that song", and that was all she said.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Song, Queens, Years

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• When I was a little kid, I used to walk miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of railroad tracks.

  Pam Houston

  Kids, Track, Littles

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about a hundred rods south of where I dwell. I usually go to the village along its causeway, and am, as it were, related to society by this link. The men on the freight trains, who go over the whole length of the road, bow to me as to an old acquaintance, they pass me so often, and apparently they take me for an employee; and so I am. I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere in the orbit of the earth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Track, Ponds

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Walden and on the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, p.98, Library of Alexandria

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• These bright roofs, these steep towers, these jewel-lakes, these skeins of railroad line - all spoke to her and she answered. She was glad they were there. She belonged to them and they to her. . . . She had not lost it. She was touching it with her fingertips. This was flying: to go swiftly over the earth you loved, touching it lightly with your fingertips, holding the railroads lines in your hand to guide you, like a skein of wool in a spider-web game - like following Ariadne's thread through the Minotaur's maze, Where would it lead, where?

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Lakes, Hands, Jewels

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• This country has achieved its commercial and financial supremacy under a regime of private ownership. It conquered the wilderness, built our railroads, our factories, our public utilities, gave us the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the automobile, the airplane, the radio and a higher standard of living for all the people than obtains anywhere else in the world. No great invention ever came from a government-owned industry.

  George B. Cortelyou

  Country, Airplane, Light

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• It's the same things your whole life. 'Clean up your room!', 'Stand up straight!', 'Pick up your feet!', 'Take it like a man!', 'Be nice to your sister!', 'Don't mix beer and wine, ever!'. Oh yeah, 'Don't drive on the railroad track!'

  Philip Connors

  Nice, Wine, Beer

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• The Chinamen built the railroad, the Indians saved the Pilgrim,
  And in return, the Pilgrim killed 'em.
  They call it it Thanksgiving, I call your holiday 'hell-day.'

  Nas

  Rap, Holiday, Hip Hop

  Song: What Goes Around, Album: Stillmatic, 2001

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• While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of "rags to riches" were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control.

  Howard Zinn

  Men, Class, Rags

  Howard Zinn (2015). “A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present”, p.254, Routledge

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• I judge property myself by its net earning power; that is the only rule I have been able to get.... This whole island [Manhattan] was once bought for a few strings of beads. But now you will find this property valued by its earning power, by its rent power, and that is the way to value a railroad or telegraph.

  Jay Gould

  Islands, Judging, Manhattan

  "Jay Gould: A Character Sketch" by William T. Stead, in The Review of Reviews. Testimony to the New York Senate Committee on Labor and Education, February 1893.

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• People don't like railroad tracks near them? We'll see how they feel when the percentage of U.S. citizens who can afford to drive a car goes way down, as it will.

  James Howard Kunstler

  People, Track, Car

  Interview With Simmons B. Buntin, www.terrain.org.

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• For 50 years my father worked for the railroad.

  Harold Evans

  Father, Years

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• The system of transportation is not coherent; it is not treated as integral. Roads compete with with railroads and airlines in chaotic fashion, and at immense cost to the nation.

  Anthony Stafford Beer

  Fashion, Cost, Transportation

  "Management Science" by Anthony Stafford Beer, (p. 186), 1968.

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• For me, seeing our history told in this light, the ones who did rebel, the ones who did revolt, the revolutionaries, excited me. Seeing this story of the Underground Railroad ... and that is such a proud part of our history that not a lot of us know about, where these brave men and women, they were heroes, really helped tear down the system of slavery just by running.

  Jurnee Smollett

  Running, Hero, Men

  "Jurnee Smollett-Bell Gets Deep About Underground, a Slave Narrative That Will Make You Proud to Be Black". Interview with Ronda Racha Penrice, www.theroot.com. March 9, 2016.

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• When my friends and I played cowboys and Indians, I was always the Chinese railroad worker.

  Robin Williams

  Cowboy, Chinese, Workers

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• I sleep equally well in a soft bed or on the grass beside the road. If I am given food and shelter, fine. If not, I'm just as happy. Many times I am given shelter by total strangers. When hospitality is not available there are always bus depots, railroad stations and all night truck stops.... When no shelter is available to me, I sleep in the fields or by the side of the road with God to guard me.

  Peace Pilgrim

  Sleep, Night, Sides

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• Unable to maintain their government-granted monopoly, the powerful railroad
  interests turned to government to do the regulating and price-fixing which they
  were unable to do themselves. In fact, the pressure that induced Congress to
  enact the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 did not come from reformers bemoaning
  abuses by the powerful railroad interests; it came from the railroad interests
  themselves, asking Congress to shield them against the harsh winds of
  competition.

  Dan Smoot

  Powerful, Government, Wind

  Dan Smoot (1973). “The BUSINESS END of Government”

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• It is useless to deny, and impossible to conceal, that a great part of Europe, the whole of Italy and France, and a great portion of Germany, to say nothing of other countries - is covered with a network of these secret societies, just as the superfices of the Earth are being covered with railroads.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Country, Europe, Secret

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