Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.

By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.

If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were.

Divine nature gave the fields; human art built the cities.

I even gave up, for a while, stopping by the window of the room to look out at the lights and deep, illuminated streets. That’s a form of dying, that losing contact with the city like that.

The seeds of civilization are in every culture, but it is city life that brings them to fruition.

The life of the city never lets you go, nor do you ever want it to.

My ideas are clear. My orders are precise. Within five years, Rome must appear marvelous to all the people of the world—vast, orderly, powerful, as in the time of the empire of Augustus.

One need merely visit the marketplace and the graveyard to determine whether a city is in both physical and metaphysical order.

There is no solitude in the world like that of the big city.

Towns oftener swamp one than carry one out onto the big ocean of life.

Does anybody really want to attend to cities other than to flee, fleece, privatize, butcher, or decimate them?

A large city cannot be experientially known; its life is too manifold for any individual to be able to participate in it.