Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.
—Hesiod, c. 700 BCQuotes
Great cities must ever be centers of light and darkness, the home of the best and the worst of our race, holding within themselves the highest talent for good and evil.
—Matthew Hale Smith, 1868There is no solitude in the world like that of the big city.
—Kathleen Norris, 1931No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.
—Cyril Connolly, 1944I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.
—Michelangelo Antonioni, 1967The country only has charms for those not obliged to stay there.
—Édouard Manet, c. 1860In Washington, the first thing people tell you is what their job is. In Los Angeles you learn their star sign. In Houston you’re told how rich they are. And in New York they tell you what their rent is.
—Simon Hoggart, 1990Today’s city is the most vulnerable social structure ever conceived by man.
—Martin Oppenheimer, 1969A hick town is one where there is no place to go where you shouldn’t go.
—Alexander Woollcott, c. 1935The life of the city never lets you go, nor do you ever want it to.
—Wallace Stevens, 1952The first requisite to happiness is that a man be born in a famous city.
—Euripides, c. 415 BCBy the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.
—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BCWe must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.
—John Winthrop, 1630