Cities quotes
4.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside cities — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Learn how to grow out of yourself and into the world of others: Plant a shade tree under which you know you will never sit. Set some goals that may benefit your children or an orphanage or the employees of your company or future generations or your own city, fifty years from now."
"I think that as good architecture enhances a city, a good cut enhances the definition and expression of a face."
"I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all."
"Manchester's got everything except a beach."
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
"Incredible amounts of energy are hidden in your brain; enough in a gram of flesh to run the city of Chicago for 2 days. And you say you are tired?"
"In America, there might be better gastronomic destinations than New Orleans, but there is no place more uniquely wonderful. ... With the best restaurants in New York, you'll find something similar to it in Paris or Copenhagen or Chicago. But there is no place like New Orleans. So it's a must-see city because there's no explaining it, no describing it. You can't compare it to anything. So, far and away New Orleans."
"I feel like I'm a New Yorker because I really know the city. I actually tell the drivers where to go - I have this bad habit, I always question the drivers. I do that all the time because I feel like I know the best way, when really it's like, 'Yo, man, shut up. This dude does this every day of his life.'"
"Only in silence I find myself. Life in the city is so hectic that you lose the right perspective. It's important to know that our biggest resources are in our heart."
"Seasons change. So do cities. People come into your life and people go, but it's comforting to know: the ones you love are always in your heart. And if you're very lucky, a plane ride away."
"Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial."
"As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means."
"When I am in the city I have the impression that I am in a living room with crystal chandeliers, rugs of velvet, and satin cushions. And when I'm in the favela I have the impression that I'm a useless object, destined to be forever in a garbage dump."
"All inquiry into antiquity, all curiosity respecting the Pyramids, the excavated cities, Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,--is the desire to do away this wild, savage, and preposterous There and Then, and introduce in its place the Here and Now."
"America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland."
"A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules."
"We do not look in great cities for our best morality."
"The U.S. is the great enemy of mankind! Against those hyenas there is no option but extermination! If the nuclear missiles had remained (in Cuba) we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City!"
"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.'"
"But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight."
