Quotes
Quotes about Cities
The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops, but the kind of man that the country ;turns out.
Sometimes, when I drive across the desert in the middle of the night, with no other cars around, I start imagining: What if there were no civilization out there? No cities, no factories, no people? And then I think: No people or factories? Then who made this car? And this highway? And I get so confused I have to stick my head out the window into the driving rain---unless there's lightning, because I could get struck on the head by a bolt.
Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements.
How far must suffering and misery go before we see that even in the day of vast cities and powerful machines, the good earth is our mother and that if we destroy her, we destroy ourselves?
The true purpose of education is to cherish and unfold the seed of immortality already sown within us; to develop, to their fullest extent, the capacities of every kind with which the God who made us has endowed us.
Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.
All German cities are blind, Nurnberg alone sees with one eye.
Not Philip, but Phillip's gold, took the cities of Greece.
Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans make a state; but where men are who know how to take care of themselves, these are cities and walls.
That man scorches with his brightness, who overpowers inferior capacities, yet he shall be revered when dead. [Lat., Urit enim fulgore suo qui praegravat artes Intra se positas; extinctus amabitur idem.]
Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests.
Nobody can misunderstand a boy like his own mother. Mothers at present can bring children into the world, but this performance is apt to mark the end of their capacities. They can't even attend to the elementary animal requirements of their offspring. It is quite surprising how many children survive in spite of their mothers.
As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
Every human life involves an unfathomable mystery, for man is the riddle of the universe, and the riddle of man in his endowment with personal capacities.
Once you have heard the lark, known the swish of feet through hill-top grass and smelt the earth made ready for the seed, you are never again going to be fully happy about the cities and towns that man carries like a crippling weight upon his back.
The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy.
In cities no one is quiet but many are lonely; in the country, people are quiet but few are lonely.
Up in the heights of the evening skies I see my City of Cities float In sunset's golden and crimson dyes: I look and a great joy clutches my throat! Plateau of roofs by canyons crossed: windows by thousands fire-furled-- O gazing, how the heart is lost in the Deepest City in the World.
Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.
O philosophy, life's guide! O searcher-out of virtue and expeller of vices! What could we and every age of men have been without thee? Thou hast produced cities; thou hast called men scattered about into the social enjoyment of life. [Lat., O vitae philosophia dux! O virtutis indagatrix, expultrixque vitiorum! Quid non modo nos, sed omnino vita hominum sine et esse potuisset? Tu urbes peperisti; tu dissipatos homines in societatum vitae convocasti.]
Don't talk to me about atrocities in war; all war is an atrocity.
The greatest people will be those who possess the best capacities, cultivated with the best habits.
The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy.
The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.
Gather in your resources, rally all your faculties, marshal all your energies, focus all your capacities upon mastery of at least one field of endeavor.
