Mark Twain
Writer, Humorist
"A railroad is like a lie you have to keep building it to make it stand."
Railroads quotes
Railroads
72 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Robin Williams
Actor, Comedian
"When my friends and I played cowboys and Indians, I was always the Chinese railroad worker."
Mark Twain
Writer, Humorist
"The true pioneer of civilization is not the newspaper, not religion, not the railroad - but whiskey!"
Walter Russell
Artist, Author, Philosopher
"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."
Henry David Thoreau
Writer, Philosopher
"We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us."
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Railroads quotes (page 1 of 4)
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"It was the custom when men received nominations to come to me for contributions, and I made them and considered them good paying investments for the company. In a Republican district I was a strong Republican; in a Democratic district I was Democratic, and in doubtful districts I was doubtful. In politics I was an Erie Railroad man all the time."
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"I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers."
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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."
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"The startings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village day."
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"Canadian Railroad Trilogy is an extremely fine piece of songwriting."
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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."
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"As a child I found railroad stations exciting, mysterious, and even beautiful, as indeed they often were."
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"Lay my head on the railroad line. Train come along; pacify my mind."
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"A railroad station? That was sort of a primitive airport, only you didn't have to take a cab 20 miles out of town to reach it."
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"The fourth landing of the Columbia is the historical equivalent of the driving of the golden spike which completed the first transcontinental railroad. It marks our entrance into a new era."
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"The Atman alone is eternal. Hospitals will tumble down. Railroad givers will all die. This earth will be blown to pieces, suns wiped out. The Atman endures for ever."
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"When railroading time comes you can railroad—but not before."
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"The only free road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the Vigilant Committee. They have tunneled under the whole breadth of the land."
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"If Ayn Rand were an up-and-coming author today, she wouldn't write about steel or railroads, it would be Net Neutrality."
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"Benefit of clergy: Half-rate on the railroad."
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"And she [Margaret Thatcher] also had a sort of a way, like a railroad train, of going, taking a breath and starting quite quietly and making a point in a way that you don't really know that this point is going to be made through several examples, and there will be not be a break in the speaking voice at any point."
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