2,405 Quotes About Cities

Rural landscapes can give the double illusion of being eternal and newly born. Cities, on the other hand, are marked with specific architecture from specific dates, and this architecture, built by long-vanished others for their own uses, is the shell that we, like hermit crabs, climb into.

I am one of those who firmly believe that our cities thrive at the expense of our villages; that our industries exploit agriculture.

She gently placed her palm on my wounded shoulder and the warmth of her hand did nearly as much to soothe the ache as did the ointment. If only she would continue touching me, allow us to forge something new together from the broken pieces of our past. Her willing presence in my life would be far more healing than any balm

A strikingly large number of our settlements are oriented to the west and, where circumstances permit, relocate in a westward direction. The east stands for lost causes. Especially at the time that the continent of America was being colonized, it was noticeable that the townships spread to the west even was their eastern districts were falling apart.

But in no epoch has the struggle to find sanctuary in a foreign country been as arduous as in the present day, as countries isolate themselves behind hostility and jealousy (from The House of a Thousand Fortunes / Das Haus der tausend Schicksale, 1937)

...frequent streets and short blocks are valuable because of the fabric of intricate cross-use that they permit among the users of a city neighbouhood.

Canadian cities looked the way American cities did on television.

A border--the perimeter of a single massive or stretched-out use of territory--forms the edge of an area of 'ordinary' city. Often borders are thought of as passive objects, or matter-of-factly just as edges. However, a border exerts an active influence.

If you are a pedestrian, you are not mechanical enough to be of priority to traffic engineers.