Railroads Quotes - Page 5

• What opened up the American West was the fact that you owned the real estate. You owned the gold mines, the oil wells. The creation of these, back then, million dollar industries drove the railroads and eventually the airlines to provide this kind of transportation.

  Peter Diamandis

  Real, Oil, American West

  "Big Think Interview With Peter Diamandis". Interview with Paul Hoffman, bigthink.com. January 26, 2010.

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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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• I think that most of the candidates [for presidency] can't run the railroad, and I still worry that whoever gets elected will have policies designed for political rather than practical reasons.

  Michael Bloomberg

  Running, Thinking, Worry

  Source: asia.nikkei.com

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• That's our mirror. Every dip, every crash, every bubble that's burst, a testament to our brilliant stupidity. This one gave us the railroads. This one the Internet. This one the slave trade. And if we hope to do anything about saving the environment, or getting to other worlds, we'll need a bubble for that too. Everything I've ever done in my life worth anything has been done in a bubble: in a state of extreme hope and trust and stupidity.

  Lucy Prebble

  Mirrors, Other Worlds, Stupidity

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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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• All the great enterprises of the world are run by a few smart men: their aides and associates run down by rapid stages to the level of sheer morons. Everyone knows that this is true of government, but we often forget that it is equally true of private undertakings. In the average great bank, or railroad, or other corporation the burden of management lies upon a small group. The rest are ciphers.

  H. L. Mencken

  Running, Smart, Lying

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.121, Knopf

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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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• I stand humbled on bended knee but, of course, the response to that would be 'Duh!' And to be given that incredible honor means that I represent the piss and vinegar, the energy, the defiance, the musicality of the Funk Brothers and Motown and Mitch Ryder and Bob Seger, Brownsville Station and Grand Funk Railroad and Eminem and Jack White and Kid Rock - are you kidding me?

  Ted Nugent

  Brother, Mean, Kids

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• 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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• Another of the strange and evil tendencies of the present day is the decoration of the railroad station... There was never more flagrant nor impertinent folly than the smallest portion of ornament in anything connected with the railroads... Railroad architecture has or would have a dignity of its own if it were only left to its work.

  John Ruskin

  Evil, Ornaments, Strange

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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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• And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, - we need never read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Dog, Memorable

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.68, Xist Publishing

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• I realized that I was really tired of people popping on and off of my property like it was a train station on the supernatural railroad.

  Charlaine Harris

  Tired, People, Train Stations

  Charlaine Harris (2009). “Dead and Gone: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel”, p.99, Penguin

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• When railroading time comes you can railroad—but not before.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Robert A. Heinlein (1959). “The Door Into Summer”, Roc

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• Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of the country as Wall Street and the railroads.

  Harry S. Truman

  Country, Dog, Wall

  Harry S. Truman (1967). “The Quotable Harry S. Truman”, Anderson, S.C. : Droke House, distributed by Grosset & Dunlap

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• We've seen those results in generations of Muslim immigrants - farmers and factory workers, helping to lay the railroads and build our cities, the Muslim innovators who helped build some of our highest skyscrapers and who helped unlock the secrets of our universe.

  Barack Obama

  Cities, Mind Blowing, Secret

  "Obama Celebrates Ramadan: 'Islam Has Contributed To The Character Of Our Country'" by Ian Schwartz, www.realclearpolitics.com. July 26, 2013.

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• Every improvement that is put upon the real estate is the result of an idea in somebody's head. The skyscraper is another idea; the railroad is another; the telephone and all those things are merely symbols which represent ideas. An andiron, a wash-tub, is the result of an idea that did not exist before.

  Mark Twain

  Real, Science, Ideas

  Mark Twain (2016). “Mark Twain's Speeches”, p.211, Xist Publishing

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• There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Philosophy, Work

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.353

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• A litterateur is not a confectioner, not a dealer in cosmetics, not an entertainer. . . . He is just like an ordinary reporter. What would you say if a newspaper reporter, because of his fastidiousness or from a wish to give pleasure to his readers, were to describe only honest mayors, high-minded ladies, and virtuous railroad contractors.

  Anton Chekhov

  Honesty, Giving, Justice

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• I did as much as I could: raising chickens, pushing an ice-cream cart, bagging walnuts, driving a tractor on a beet farm, working on the railroad. I think this eclectic career helped me a lot in life.

  Charles R. Schwab

  Life Lesson, Thinking, Ice Cream

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• [At the end of the story, its main character, Tom] is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth; and knows everything about everything, except why a hen's egg don't turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little things that no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.

  Charles Kingsley

  Knowledge, Character, Science

  Charles Kingsley (1872). “The Water-babies a Fairy Tale for a Land-baby by the Rev. Charles Kingsley”, p.385

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• When I did big things, some large corporations like the Pennsylvania Railroad Company were behind me and responsible party.

  Andrew Carnegie

  Inspirational, Party, Pennsylvania

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• You look at the steamboat, the railroad, the car, the airplane - not all of these were invented in the Anglo-American world, but they were popularized and extended by it. They were made possible by the financial architecture, the capital intensive operations invented and developed by the Anglo-Americans.

  Walter Russell

  Airplane, Car, Looks

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• Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over. The greatest picture is not yet painted, the greatest play isn't written, the greatest poem is unsung. There isn't in all the world a perfect railroad, nor a good government, nor a sound law. Physics, mathematics, and especially the most advanced and exact of the sciences are being fundamentally revised. . . Psychology, economics, and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an Einstein.

  Lincoln Steffens

  Creativity, Law, Play

  Lincoln Steffens (1937). “The autobiography of Lincoln Steffens: abridged”

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• Stranded in this mill town railroad yard while the whole world was converging elsewhere, we seemed to be nothing but children playing among heroic men.

  John Knowles

  Peace, Children, Men

  John Knowles (2014). “A Separate Peace”, p.82, Simon and Schuster

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