quotations about cities
To one who has been long in city pent,
’Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven.
JOHN KEATS
"To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent"
Even cities have their graves!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Amalfi
Cities are the sinks of the human race.
ROUSSEAU
attributed, Day's Collacon
It is in the midst of the city that one writes the most inspiring pages about the country.
JULES RENARD
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
If you would be known, and not know vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth, nor blest abode
But the hope, the burning hope, and the road, the lonely road.
Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace of mind,
For we go seeking cities that we shall never find.
JOHN MASEFIELD
The Seekers
The country life is to be preferr'd; for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Cities with all their advantages have something hostile to liberal learning, the seductions are so subtle and accost the senses so openly on all sides.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
I like the roar of cities. In the mart,
Where busy toilers strive for place and gain,
I seem to read humanity's great heart,
And share its hopes, its pleasures, and its pain.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"The City"
Ye who amid this feverish world would wear
A body free of pain, of cares a mind,
Fly the rank city, shun its turbid air;
Breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke
And volatile corruption, from the dead,
The dying, sickening, and the living world
Exhal'd, to sully heaven's transparent dome
With dim mortality.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
The Art of Preserving Health
Humans turn the places they live into great crowded piles of mud and stone, like the nests termites build--but what happens when in all the world there are termite hills left but no bush?
TAD WILLIAMS
Otherland: City of Golden Shadow
There is no solitude more dreadful for a stranger, an isolated man, than a great city; so many thousands of men and not one friend.
BOISTE
attributed, Day's Collacon
A city man is at home anywhere, for all big cities are much alike.
EDWARD ABBEY
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Cities were always like people, showing their varying personalities to the traveler. Depending on the city and on the traveler, there might begin a mutual love, or dislike, friendship, or enmity. Where one city will rise a certain individual to glory, it will destroy another who is not suited to its personality. Only through travel can we know where we belong or not, where we are loved and where we are rejected.
ROMAN PAYNE
Cities & Countries
The city is an epitome of the social world. All the belts of civilization intersect along its avenues; it contains the products of every moral zone; it is cosmopolitan, not only in a national, but in a spiritual sense.
EDWIN HUBBELL CHAPIN
Humanity in the City
Cities aren’t like people; they live on and on, even though their reason for being where they are has gone downriver and out to sea.
JOHN UPDIKE
Trust Me
I'm lookin' over the skyline of the city
How loud quiet nights in the mist of crime
How next door to happiness lives sorrow
And signals of solution in the sky
R. KELLY
"Gotham City"
We are all proprietary toward cities we love. 'Ah, you should have seen her when I loved her!' we say, reciting glories since faded or defiled, trusting her to no one else; that others should know and love her in her present fallen state (for she must fall without our vigilant love) is a species of betrayal.
BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON
Italian Days
When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?"
What will you answer? "We all dwell together
To make money from each other"? or "This is a community"?
T. S. ELIOT
The Rock
Well, I just got into town about an hour ago
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow
Where the little girls in their Hollywood bungalows
Are you a lucky little lady from The City of Light?
Or just another lost angel?
THE DOORS
"L.A. Woman"