Quotes about cities capture the essence and vibrancy of urban life. They often reflect the unique character and diversity found in cityscapes. These quotes express the energy, opportunities, and challenges that cities offer to their residents and visitors. They celebrate the fast-paced nature of city life and highlight the constant movement and change that cities are known for. Quotes about cities can inspire a sense of wonder and appreciation for the architectural marvels, cultural heritage, and bustling atmosphere that make cities so captivating.
Cities have always been the fireplaces of civilization, whence light and heat radiated out into the dark. — Theodore Parker
Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else. — Italo Calvino
Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have been blessed to visit the Holy City of Mecca. — Malcolm X
My favourite city is Miami. It's very fresh and the beach is sunny. — Liu Wen
A Tale Of Two Cities Quotes
I have a bold plan to break from the Bloomberg years, and end the 'Tale of Two Cities' by providing real opportunity to all New Yorkers, no matter where they live. — Bill de Blasio
Think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you. — Charles Dickens
Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule. — Charles Dickens
A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it. — Charles Dickens
I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life...her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing. — Maya Angelou
I'm reading Barnaby Rudge, one of the less well-known Dickens novels. I've been a life-long lover of Charles Dickens ever since I think A Tale of Two Cities was the first Dickens novel I read. — George Brandis
When I was 14 or 15, our teacher introduced us to Dickens' 'A Tale of Two Cities.' It was just for entertainment - we read it aloud - and all of a sudden it became a treasure. — Dermot Healy
Sustainable Cities Quotes
San Francisco lags behind other communities in providing a vital, vibrant and ecologically sustainable urban canopy, as well as open space in the city. — Gavin Newsom
Our world is evolving without consideration, and the result is a loss of biodiversity, energy issues, congestion in cities. But geography, if used correctly, can be used to redesign sustainable and more livable cities. — Jack Dangermond
I don't think there's a city that has done more and sustained a higher level of security and protection than New York City. — Tom Ridge
The key to truly rebuilding our central city on a vital and sustainable foundation is people. — Alan Autry
You are traveling and see these people shooting the entire experience of going through a city, and maybe in the back of their minds they sustain the illusion that they will edit it all, but I don't think that's it. — Atom Egoyan
But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation. For in these days, Caesar is no longer a mere destroyer of armies, cities, and nations. He is a contradicter of the fundamental miracle of life. — Wendell Berry
The only sustainable city - and this, to me, is the indispensable ideal and goal - is a city in balance with its countryside. — Wendell Berry
When the forest and the city are functionally indistinguishable, then we know we have reached sustainability. — Janine Benyus
Any city has to give some thought to its ambition and brand in order to set sustainability goals. — Ginni Rometty
Not until the beginning of the 20th century did Europe's urban populations finally become self-sustaining: before then, constant immigration of healthy peasants from the countryside was necessary to make up for the constant deaths of city dwellers from crowd diseases. — Jared Diamond
Cities In The World Quotes
The most exciting and, by far, the most important part of our Florida project, in fact, the heart of everything well be doing in Disney World, will be our experimental prototype city of tomorrow. We call it EPCOT. — Walt Disney
For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. Soe that if we shall 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 throughout the world. — John Winthrop
On the meeting point of two worlds, the ornament of Turkish homeland, the treasure of Turkish history, the city cherished by the Turkish nation, İstanbul, has its place in the hearts of all citizens. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art. — Benjamin Disraeli
We live in a world where our social system is old, our language is old, the way we acquire goods and services is outdated, our cities are detrimental to our health, chaotic and a tremendous waste of resource, and most of all our politics and values no longer serve us. — Jacque Fresco
No city in the world, not even Athens or Rome, ever played as great a role in the life of a nation for so long a time, as Jerusalem has done in the life of the Jewish people. — David Ben-Gurion
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not. — Georgia O'Keeffe
Belgrade is the ugliest city in the world in the most beautiful place in the world. — Le Corbusier
I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. — Ayn Rand
Attacks on cities are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and so preserve the lives of allied soldiers. — Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet
Big Cities Quotes
My parents didn't really understand too much about sport. At that time, we were in a Polish community in the inner city of Chicago, and I was the youngest of a bunch of cousins. Polish families are real big, with cousins and aunts and uncles. — Mike Krzyzewski
I'm living every ten-year-old boy's fantasy. The other day, Chris and I had this big scene where we had to pull out our guns, and I was thinking, 'Here we are in New York City - a place where every actor wants to be - and we are literally playing cops and robbers. How great is that?' — Mariska Hargitay
Invest in startups. Start a company. Create a book, podcast, video. Create a software product. go on many first dates. go to a cocktail party. read a lindy book. move to a big city. buy bitcoin. tweet. — Naval Ravikant
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning — Nostradamus
When I was in high school I moved from the big city to a tiny village of 500 people in Vermont. It was like The Waltons! — Daphne Zuniga
As long as anti-gay legislation exists in any state, I strongly believe big events such as the Final Four and Super Bowl should not be held in those states' cities. — Charles Barkley
Voting is a Constitutional right. Absent any evidence of fraud, all Americans have a protected right to vote, be they rich or poor, black, Hispanic or white, people who live in a big city or in remote rural areas. — Juan Williams
In the City of God there will be a great thunder,
Two brothers torn apart by Chaos,
while the fortress endures,
the great leader will succumb,
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning — Nostradamus
We're crazy about this city. Los Angeles? That's just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco. — John Lennon
As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means. — Albert Camus
Cities And Towns Quotes
Not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike, boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school — John Amos Comenius
The more people who own little businesses of their own, the safer our country will be, and the better off its cities and towns; for the people who have a stake in their country and their community are its best citizens. — John Hancock
When men were all asleep the snow came flying, In large white flakes falling on the city brown, Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town. — Robert Bridges
Storing just 3 days of global energy would cost $590 trillion at Elon Musk's current prices. And the panels would take up more space than all the world’s cities, towns, and villages combined. — Alex Epstein
Pittsburgh isn't fancy, but it is real. It's a working town and money doesn't come easy. I feel as much a part of this city as the cobblestone streets and the steel mills, people in this town expect an honest day's work, and I've it to them for a long, long time. — Willie Stargell
Being in this business for as long as I've been in it, it's sort of like living in a town or a city before the war and then after the war and then during the reconstruction and then during the time that it sprawls out to the malls. — Carly Simon
Today every city, town, or village is affected by it. We have entered the Neon Civilization and become a plastic world.. It goes deeper than its visual manifestations, it affects moral matters; we are engaged, as astrophysicists would say, on a decaying orbit. — Raymond Loewy
Unlike the boundaries of the sea by the shorelines, the "ocean of air" laps at the border of every state, city, town and home throughout the world. — L. Welch Pogue
Whenever I'm out of town for at least a week, I feel like I should write a postcard or something, but you can be a genius, you try and write a postcard you come across like a moron anyway: 'This city's got big buildings. I like food. Bye.' — Jim Gaffigan
My films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population. — Satyajit Ray
American Cities Quotes
American life, in large cities, is a perpetual assault on the senses and the nerves; it is out of asceticism, out of unworldliness, precisely, that we bear it. — Joseph McCarthy
The Americans may think they have 'liberated' Baghdad but the tens of thousands of thieves - they came in families and cruised the city in trucks and cars searching for booty - seem to have a different idea what liberation means. — Robert Fisk
Lets make no mistake about this: The American Dream starts with the neigborhoods. If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. And to do that, we must
understand that the quality of life is more important than the standard of living. — Harvey Milk
Spring has many American faces. There are cities where it will come and go in a day and counties where it hangs around and never quite gets there. Summer is drawn blinds in Louisiana, long winds in Wyoming, shade of elms and maples in New England. — Archibald MacLeish
The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners. — F. Scott Fitzgerald
Unfortunately there are still people in other areas who regard New York City not as part of the United States, but as a sort of excrescence fastened to our Eastern shore and peopled by the less venturesome waves of foreigners who failed to go West to the genuine American frontier. — Robert Moses
The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city school and broken black families. — Star Parker
In our American cities, we need all kinds of diversity. — Jane Jacobs
Australia is one of the few places that I can think of where the cities, at least those I've been to, seem to have strikingly different characters and visual textures. To an American like me, there's basically Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and the rest is all bush. — Michael Bierut
New York is the meeting place of the peoples, the only city where you can hardly find a typical American. — Djuna Barnes
Large Cities Quotes
We are always looking for a small number of very evil needles in a very large haystack, which is the city of London. — Charles Clarke
The great city can teach something that no university by itself can altogether impart: a vivid sense of the largeness of human brotherhood, a vivid sense of man's increasing obligation to man; a vivid sense of our absolute dependence on one another. — Seth Low
No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning. — Cyril Connolly
Not one piece of evidence has ever been found to support the Book of Mormon-not a trace of the large cities it names, no ruins, no coins, no letters or documents or monuments, nothing in writing. Not even one of the rivers or mountains or any of the topography it mentions has ever been identified. — Dave Hunt
Like Melrose Abbey, large cities should especially be viewed by moonlight. — Nathaniel Parker Willis
A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it. — Aldous Huxley
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. — Thomas Jefferson
All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value. — Carl Sagan
It simply feels right to me to blend the glittery delights of New York City with a largely raw vegan diet - with the soul-deep conviction that animals are not ours to eat, wear, exploit or experiment on. — Victoria Moran
I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe. — Thomas Jefferson
Tale Of Two Cities Quotes
That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds. — Charles Dickens
Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away. — Charles Dickens
Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; - the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine! — Charles Dickens
I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by and by into our lives. "Jerry, say that my answer was, 'RECALLED TO LIFE. — Charles Dickens
Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph. — Charles Dickens
I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her. — Charles Dickens
Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. — Charles Dickens
Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low. — Charles Dickens
Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not. — Charles Dickens
Cities At Night Quotes
I hate to blow the mystique, but at the time we really liked bubblegum music, and we really liked the Bay City Rollers. Their song 'Saturday Night' had a great chant in it, so we wanted a song with a chant in it: 'Hey! Ho! Let's Go!'. 'Blitzkrieg Bop' was our 'Saturday Night'. — Joey Ramone
Political life at Washington is like political life in a suburban vestry. — Oscar Wilde
Though one can dine in New York, one could not dwell there. — Oscar Wilde
Well, I got pretty good and went on the road with a group. We starved. At that time I didn't realize that you'd work one gig in Kansas City, the next in Florida and the next gig will be in Louisville. You know, a thousand miles a night. That was really rough, man. — Wes Montgomery
We can see cities during the day and at night, and we can watch rivers dump sediment into the ocean, and see hurricanes form. — Sally Ride
We must shed the old stereotype of anarchists as bearded bomb throwers furtively stalking about city streets at night. — Stephen Jay Gould
I had a really intense flying dream most of my childhood into my teens. I would go out at night and fly all over the city and I could facilitate other people to fly with me. — Dee Dee Ramone
The Bostonians take their learning too sadly: culture with them is an accomplishment rather than an atmosphere; their "Hub," as they call it, is the paradise of prigs. — Oscar Wilde
The night before I left Las Vegas I walked out in the desert to look at the moon. There was a jeweled city on the horizon, spires rising in the night, but the jewels were diadems of electric and the spires were the neon of signs ten stories high. — Norman Mailer
City Streets Quotes
This is something everyone knows: A well-used city street is apt to be a safe street. A deserted city street is apt to be unsafe. — Jane Jacobs
The more successfully a city mingles everyday diversity of uses and users in its everyday streets, the more successfully, casually (and economically) its people thereby enliven and support well-located parks that can thus give back grace and delight to their neighborhoods instead of vacuity. — Jane Jacobs
We shall defend our land, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight in the woods, in the fields, on the beaches, in the cities and villages, in the streets, we shall fight in the hills... we shall fight on the spoil tips, on the banks of the Kalmius and the Dnieper. And we shall not surrender. — Volodymyr Zelenskyy
The street is the river of life of the city, the place where we come together, the pathway to the center. — William H. Whyte
I love New York, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it. — Truman Capote
Being a disciple means being constantly ready to bring the love of Jesus to others, and this can happen unexpectedly and in any place: on the street, in a city square, during work, on a journey. — Pope Francis
It's unnatural for people to run around the city streets unless they are thieves or victims. It makes people nervous to see someone running. I know that when I see someone running on my street, my instincts tell me to let the dog go after him. — Mike Royko
I will meet you in the dirtiest city you can dream of. We will drink cocktails so sweet they pucker our cheeks, as we perch on cracked leather bar stools. I will buy you plates of calcium and protein and we will run through the streets in excellent danger. — Michelle Tea
But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not on the streets of our cities. — Antonin Scalia
We need to pledge ourselves anew to the cause of Christ. We must capture the spirit of the early church. Wherever the early Christians went, they made a triumphant witness for Christ. Whether on the village streets or in the city jails, they daringly proclaimed the good news of the gospel. — Martin Luther
Urban Quotes
Particular attention should be given to the opportunities which the environment presents or precludes for involvement of children with persons both older and younger than themselves. — Urie Bronfenbrenner
Urbanization is not about simply increasing the number of urban residents or expanding the area of cities. More importantly, it's about a complete change from rural to urban style in terms of industry structure, employment, living environment and social security. — Li Keqiang
History shows that male homosexuality, which like prostitution flourishes with urbanization and soon becomes predictably ritualized, always tends toward decadence. — Camille Paglia
Do not try to make circumstances fit your plans. Make plans that fit the circumstances. — George S. Patton
The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights. — David Harvey
All urbanization, pushed beyond a certain point, automatically becomes suburbanization.... Every great city is just a collection of suburbs. Its inhabitantsdo not live in their city; they merely inhabit it. — Aldous Huxley
[Urbanization] is the inevitable outcome of the processes of growth and the processes of modernization. — Manmohan Singh
If the Chinese population were to be given a free vote, the unity of the Han might begin to crack, or, more likely, the countryside and urban areas would come into conflict. — Tim Marshall
I find it striking that the quality of the urban habitat of homo sapieans is so weakly researched compared to the habitats of gorillas, elephants, and Bengal tigers and panda bears in China…you hardly see anything on the habitat of man in the urban environment. — Jan Gehl
I live a very quiet life, although I'm very urban and a diehard New Yorker — Armand Assante
While people are struggling unhappily in the cities against the cruel authorities, a waterfall happily and cheerfully flows in the nature; there is happiness only if there is freedom! — Mehmet Murat Ildan
The materials of city planning are: sky, space, trees, steel and cement; in that order and that hierarchy. — Le Corbusier
Seek refuge in Mary because she is the city of refuge. We know that Moses set up three cities of refuge for anyone who inadvertently killed his neighbor. Now the Lord has established a refuge of mercy, Mary, even for those who deliberately commit evil. Mary provides shelter and strength for the sinner. — Anthony of Padua
For what fortress, what city, in the wide extent of the Roman empire, can hope to exist, secure and impregnable, if it is our pleasure that it should be erased from the earth? — Attila the Hun
To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature; contumely to God, a thing most contrary to his revealed will and approved ordinance; and finally, it is the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice. — John Knox
The Greatest Happiness is to scatter your enemy and drive him before you. To see his cities reduced to ashes. To see those who love him shrouded and in tears. And to gather to your bosom his wives and daughters. — Genghis Khan
A good city is like a good party - people stay longer than really necessary, because they are enjoying themselves. — Jan Gehl
A city is the place of availabilities. It is the place where a small boy, as he walks through it, may see something that will tell him what he wants to do his whole life. — Louis Kahn
The city of Chandigarh is planned to human scale. It puts us in touch with the infinite cosmos and nature. It provides us with places and buildings for all human activities by which the citizens can live a full and harmonious life. Here the radiance of nature and heart are within our reach. — Le Corbusier
Intricate minglings of different uses in cities are not a form of chaos. On the contrary, they represent a complex and highly developed form of order. — Jane Jacobs
The cities, the roads, the countryside, the people I meet - they all begin to blur. I tell myself I am searching for something. But more and more, it feels like I am wandering, waiting for something to happen to me, something that will change everything, something that my whole life has been leading up to. — Khaled Hosseini
I love Amsterdam. The city is vibrant and alive. It's fresh and so open. It's definitely one of my favorite places. — Stefon Harris
You are the stars and the world is watching you. By your presence, you send a message to every village, every city, every nation. A message of hope. A message of victory. — Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Lowly, unpurposeful and random as they may appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change from which a city's wealth of public life may grow. — Jane Jacobs
In the City of Death, there is pitch darkness and huge clouds of dust, neither sister nor brother is there. This body is frail, old age is overtaking it. — Guru Gobind Singh
The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any one place is always replete with new improvisations. — Jane Jacobs
To approach a city, or even a city neighborhood, as if it were a larger architectural problem, capable of being given order by converting it into a disciplined work of art, is to make the mistake of attempting to substitute art for life. The results of such profound confusion between art and life are neither life nor art. They are taxidermy. — Jane Jacobs
Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will. — Abraham Joshua Heschel
In Conclusion
City quotes also touch upon the sense of community and connection that cities foster. They emphasize the interplay between people from various backgrounds and the shared experiences that create a tapestry of urban life. These quotes acknowledge the contrasts and contradictions that exist in cities, from the towering skyscrapers to the hidden corners of serenity. They capture the dreams, aspirations, and struggles of those who call cities their home. Quotes about cities encapsulate the spirit of urban living and encourage us to embrace the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of these vibrant human settlements.
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Citation
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