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Century Quotes

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Century Quotes

“Bengalis love to celebrate their language, their culture, their politics, their fierce attachment to a city that has been famously dying for more than a century. They resent with equal ferocity the reflex stereotyping that labels any civic dysfunction anywhere in the world 'another Calcutta.'”

World Has Beens Culture Language Cities Century Dying Equal Celebrate Labels Attachment Fierce Stereotype Resent Civics Reflexes Calcutta Dysfunction Ferocity

Author:Bharati Mukherjee

“After long centuries, agrarian civilization is weakening. Is sufficient attention being devoted to the arrangement and improvement of the life of the country people, whose inferior and at times miserable economic situation provokes the flight to the unhappy crowded conditions of the city outskirts, where neither employment nor housing awaits them?”

“Human beings need community. If there are no communities available for constructive ends, there will be destructive, murderous communities... Only the social sector, that is, the nongovernmental, nonprofit organization, can create what we now need, communities for citizens... What the dawning 21st century needs above all is equally explosive growth of the nonprofit social sector in building communities in the newly dominant social environment, the city.”

“There is simply no room left for 'freedom from the tyranny of government' since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare. Your right to live where you want, with companions of your choosing, under laws to which you agree, died in the eighteenth century with Captain Mission. Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.”

Source: Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader

“You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?”

“Never was there a dingier, uglier, less picturesque city than London ... it is really wonderful that so much brick and stone, for centuries together, should have been built up with so poor a result.”

Should Has Beens Together Poor Results Cities Wonderful Century Built Stones Should Have London Bricks Should Have Been Picturesque

Book:Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of

Source: Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of

“O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name Conqueror or City-burner! Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true sort, namely over the Devil: thou too hast built what will outlast all marble and metal, and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will pilgrim.”

Source: Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books

“New York doesn't exactly have neighborhoods, the way most cities do. What it has is closer to distinct and separate villages, some of them existing on different continents, some of them existing in different centuries, and many of them at war with one another. English is not the primary language in many of these villages, but the Roman alphabet does still have a slight edge.”

Way Doe Stills Different War Language Cities Century New York Edges Primaries Neighborhood Village Continents Alphabet

Book:What's So Funny?

Source: What's So Funny?

“In Las Vegas, people seem to believe, the prosperity spawned by tourism and gaming can make them whole, financially and spiritually. Las Vegas now melds fun, work, and wealth, showing a path toward the brightest vistas of the post-industrial world. It is the first city of the twenty-first century.”

People World Firsts Believe Whole Seems Fun Wealth Cities Path Century Twenties Prosperity Posts Vegas Las Vegas Tourism Gaming Vistas Fun Work

Book:The Grit Beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas

Source: The Grit Beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas

“I believe in the city as a natural human environment, but we must humanize it. It's art that will re-define public space in the 21st Century. We can make our cities diverse, inspirational places by putting art, dance and performance in all its forms into the matrix of street life.”

Believe Humans Art Form I Believe Natural Space Cities Environment Streets Century Performances I Believe In Diverse 21st Century Art Dance Street Life

Author:Antony Gormley

“In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the name of Canty, who did not want him.”

Want Book Certain Names Born Poor Cities Boys Century Ancient London Autumn Quarters Want Him Autumn Days Poor Family City Of London

Book:The Prince and the Pauper

Source: The Prince and the Pauper

“O thou who art able to write a book which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name city-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name conqueror or city-burner.”

Men Writing Art Two Book Able Names Cities Century Envy Pity Gifted Conqueror Builder Authorship

Book:Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books

Source: Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books

“The way in which each human infant is transformed into the finished adult, into the complicated individual version of his city and his century is one of the most fascinating studies open to the curious minded.”

Way Humans Individual Cities Study Childhood Century Adults Complicated Finished Versions Curious Fascinating Transformed Infant

Book:GROWING UP IN NEW GUINEA

Source: GROWING UP IN NEW GUINEA

“No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.”

World Given Community Cities Quality Century Distinctive Dwellers Rural Communities

Book:American Austen: The Forgotten Writing of Agnes Repplier

Source: American Austen: The Forgotten Writing of Agnes Repplier

“Chicago's downtown seems to me to constitute, all in all, the best-looking twentieth-century city, the city where contemporary technique has best been matched by artistry, intelligence, and comparatively moderated greed. No doubt about it, if style were the one gauge, Chicago would be among the greatest of all the cities of the world.”

Ifs World Seems Would Be Cities Doubt Century Style Greed Architecture Technique Contemporary No Doubt Chicago Twentieth Century Artistry Downtown Matched All The Best Gauges

Book:Locations

Source: Locations

“The skyscraper and the twentieth century are synonymous; the tall building is the landmark of our age. ... Shaper of cities and fortunes, it is the dream, past and present, acknowledged or unacknowledged, of almost every architect.”

Dream Age Past Cities Century Building Fortune Architecture Tall Architect Twentieth Century Past And Present Landmarks Skyscraper Tall Buildings

Book:On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change

Source: On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change

“Rising seas create a higher baseline for future storm surges. The New York City Panel on Climate Change has projected that coastal waters may rise by two feet by 2050 and four feet by the end of the century.”

May Two Ends Water Cities Four Sea Feet Century New York Higher Climate Climate Change Storm Rising New York City Coastal

Author:Nicholas D. Kristof

“whatever San Francisco is or is not, it is never dull. Life there is in a perpetual ferment. It is as though the city kettle had been set on the stove to boil half a century ago and had never been taken off. The steam is pouring out of the nose. The cover is dancing up and down. The very kettle is rocking and jumping. But by some miracle the destructive explosion never happens.”

“The speeding toy cars produce in the viewer the stress of living in a dynamic, active and bustling 21st-century city.”

Cities Century Car Produce Stress Active Toys 21st Century Viewers Speeding

Author:Chris Burden

“For centuries, as pope and emperor tore each other apart in their quarrels over power, the excluded went on living on the fringe, like lepers, of whom true lepers are only the illustration ordained by God to make us understand this wondrous parable, so that in saying 'lepers' we would understand 'outcast, poor, simple, excluded, uprooted from the countryside, humiliated in the cities.' But we did not understand; the mystery of leprosy has continued to haunt us because we have not recognized the nature of the sign.”

Simple Poor Cities Mystery Century Pope Quarrels Fringe Emperor Living On Countryside Illustration Outcast Wondrous Excluded Humiliated Parables Leper Leprosy

Book:Name of the Rose

Source: Name of the Rose

“The Warmth of Other Suns is a sweeping and yet deeply personal tale of America's hidden 20th century history - the long and difficult trek of Southern blacks to the northern and western cities. This is an epic for all Americans who want to understand the making of our modern nation.”

Want Long America Nations Difficult Cities Sun Modern Century Western Tales Warmth Southern Epic 20th Century Sweeping

Author:Tom Brokaw

“Cities offer us powerful leverage on our most stubborn, wasteful practices. Long commutes in our cars, big power bills from our energy-hogging buildings, shopping trips to buy stuff that'll spend a few short months in our homes and long centuries in our landfills.”

Long Home Bigs Energy Stuff Powerful Cities Practice Century Car Building Months Offers Bills Shopping Stubborn Landfills

Author:Alex Steffen

“Goddesses never die. They slip in and out of the world's cities, in and out of our dreams, century after century, answering to different names, dressed differently, perhaps even disguised, perhaps idle and unemployed, their official altars abandoned, their temples feared or simply forgotten.”

World Different Dream Dies Names Cities Century Forgotten Officials Temples Abandoned Slips Goddess Idle Our Dreams Altars Unemployed Different Names

Book:Women & madness

Source: Women & madness

“Poor children live in a particularly dangerous world--an urban world of broken stair railings, of busy streets serving as playgrounds, of lead paint, rats and rat poisons, or a rural world where families do not enjoy the minimal levels of public health accepted as standard for nearly a century. Whether in city or country, this is a world where cavities go unfilled and ear infections threatening permanent deafness go untreated. It is world where even a small child learns to be ashamed of the way he or she lives.”

Source: All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

“I had only to remember that centuries before, men fell in battle for the daughter of Troy, that passions carried greater weight than decorum. It took so little to prove that human life and property are devastatingly temporary. All she had to do was lie down for a prince. They burned the city to the ground.”

Men Humans Littles Remember Lying Passion Cities Greater Century Battle Prove Daughter Weight Property Human Life Temporary Burned Decorum

Author:Brenna Yovanoff

“The right to express one's views, practice one's faith, peacefully assemble with others to pursue political or social change - these are all rights to which all human beings are entitled, whether they choose to exercise them in a city square or an Internet chat room. And just as we have worked together since the last century to secure these rights in the material world, we must work together in this century to secure them in cyberspace.”

“Not only in peasant homes, but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside the twentieth century, the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic powers of signs and exorcisms . . . movie stars to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man's genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance and savagery!”

“I noticed whenever you call information, 411, there's always a computer voice, and they go, 'What number would you like? City and state, please.' 'Yeah, I'd like the number of Macy's in Century City, California.' 'Did you say 'pretzel nuggets'?”

States Voice Numbers Cities Century Information Please Computer Yeah California Nuggets Pretzels Macy's

Author:Andy Kindler

“At the beginning of the 20th century, before the migration began, 90 percent of all African-Americans were living in the South. By the end of the Great Migration, nearly half of them were living outside the South in the great cities of the North and West. So when this migration began, you had a really small number of people who were living in the North and they were surviving as porters or domestics or preachers - some had risen to levels of professional jobs - but they were, in some ways, protected because they were so small.”

People Way Ends Jobs Levels Numbers Cities Half Century Percent West South African American Protected Preacher 20th Century Surviving Risen Migration Great Cities Small Numbers

Author:Isabel Wilkerson

“I always wanted to write a book about LA, a big ambitious book. Nobody had ever really done it with LA- treating the city seriously as a major economic and cultural power, as the embodiment of 21st century America.”

Writing Book Done Bigs Wanted America Cities Economic Century Majors Ambitious 21st Century Embodiment

Author:James Frey

“There were a hundred booksellers in the old round city founded by the eighth-century caliph al-Mansur. The café and wine-drinking culture of Baghdad has been famous for centuries; there was a whole school of Iraqi poets who wrote poems about the wine bars of medieval Baghdad - the khamriyaat, or wine songs, that I quote in the book.”

Has Beens Book Whole School Song Culture Cities Century Poet Hundred Wine Drinking Rounds Bars Als Medieval Baghdad Drinking Wine Caliphs Booksellers

Author:Annia Ciezadlo

“It is not simply that these two cities are perched side by side at the edge of the Pacific; it is that adolescence sits next to middle age, and they don't know how to relate to each other. In a way, these two cities exist in different centuries. San Diego is a post-industrial city talking about settling down, slowing down, building clean industry. Tijuana is a preindustrial city talking about changing, moving forward, growing. Yet they form a single metropolitan area.”

“'m constantly depressed by the Mexican gang members I meet in East L.A. who essentially live their lives inside five or six blocks. They are caught in some tiny ghetto of the mind that limits them to these five blocks because, they say, "I'm Mexican. I live here." And I say, "What do you mean you live here - five blocks? Your granny, your abualita, walked two thousand miles to get here. She violated borders, moved from one language to another, moved from a sixteenth-century village to a twenty-first-century city, and you live within five blocks?"”