City Councils Quotes

On local city councils being effective: The job of the council is to get together and debate and discuss. But you do it in a way that preserves the relationships so that we can get together next week and do it again. ~ Thomas L. Friedman

In church it occurred to me that it is time for the public to hear that the giant evil and danger in this country, the danger which transcends all others, is the vast wealth owned or controlled by a few persons. Money is power. In Congress, in state legislatures, in city councils, in the courts, in the political conventions, in the press, in the pulpit, in the circles of the educated and the talented, its influence is growing greater and greater. Excessive wealth in the hands of the few means extreme poverty, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness as the lot of the many. It is not yet time to debate about the remedy. The previous question is as to the danger - the evil. Let the people be fully informed and convinced as to the evil. Let them earnestly seek the remedy and it will be found. Fully to know the evil is the first step towards reaching its eradication. Henry George is strong when he portrays the rottenness of the present system. We are, to say the least, not yet ready for his remedy. We may reach and remove the difficulty by changes in the laws regulating corporations, descents of property, wills, trusts, taxation, and a host of other important interests, not omitting lands and other property. ~ Rutherford B. Hayes

There were people whose only interest in life was writing letters. To the newspapers, to authors, to strangers, to City Councils, to the police. It did not much matter to whom; the satisfaction of writing seemed to be all. ~ Josephine Tey

What a City Council should do, and what it will do, don't always
match up. ~ Ernest Vincent Wright

...The underlying motive for the French wars [of 1562-1598] was not religious, but dynastic. By the mid-16th century, the Valois family of kings, who had ruled France since 1328, was losing its grasp on political power. Valois King Henry II died in 1559, leaving four sons, all too young or too feeble to rule alone, and three rival noble families, all eager to seize power. One, the Guise (who had married into the royal family), were Catholic; their enemies, the Bourbon and the (more moderate) Montmerency, were Protestant. The Bourbon, in particular, were supported by the many small local Protestant churches that had been set up in France by supporters of Calvin's teachings. Unlike Protestants in England or Germany, they were not controlled by powerful rulers or city councils; some were prepared to use violence and other forms of lawlessness to further Protestant reform. Concerned by this threat to public order, and continuing the Valois' kings generally hostile policy toward reform, in 1562 the Guise ordered the massacre of 74 Protestants at a church service. ~ Fiona MacDonald

During the Bosnian war in the late 1990s, I spent several days traveling around the country with Susan Sontag and her son, my dear friend David Rieff. On one occasion, we made a special detour to the town of Zenica, where there was reported to be a serious infiltration of outside Muslim extremists: a charge that was often used to slander the Bosnian government of the time. We found very little evidence of that, but the community itself was much riven as between Muslim, Croat, and Serb. No faction was strong enough to predominate, each was strong enough to veto the other's candidate for the chairmanship of the city council. Eventually, and in a way that was characteristically Bosnian, all three parties called on one of the town's few Jews and asked him to assume the job. We called on him, and found that he was also the resident intellectual, with a natural gift for synthesizing matters. After we left him, Susan began to chortle in the car. 'What do you think?' she asked. 'Do you think that the only dentist and the only shrink in Zenica are Jewish also?' It would be dense to have pretended not to see her joke. ~ Christopher Hitchens

I'm the same kid who used to hop the trains with headphones and just go to downtown Manhattan, walk around and listen to music or walk through the city. The fame restricts that. It's a small complaint in comparison to the benefits I get from it, but the restrictive part is what I don't like - and the fact that it's not reversible. ~ J. Cole

There is no water and still less soap. We have no city, but lots of hope. ~ Mary Pope Osborne

Shirts and jeans litter the asphalt, the empty fabric limbs askew as if they're attempting to escape. Blood smears Sarah's lips as she struggles against the chest of a dirty looking man with a beard. Terror. Terror is the only word my mind can seize on and it forgets what it means. I forget how to think - to move. ~ Brenna Ehrlich

Please read prayerfully what I'm about to write. When God puts a passion in your heart, whether it be relieving starvation in Africa or educating children in the inner city or making movies with redemptive messages, that God-ordained passion becomes your responsibility. And you have a choice to make. Are you going to be irresponsibly responsible or responsibly irresponsible? ~ Mark Batterson

From his vantage point on the window sill, The Dude cocked a rear leg back over his head and proceeded to lick at his private parts with a thoroughness that would make a lesser man blush. I shook my head at the sight and mumbled, "Show off," in the animal's general direction. For a moment the tiny kitten hesitated, leg still extended behind its head, face still over its crotch. It narrowed its eyes at me, let out a displeased sound, then promptly got back to work.
I suppose there are worse things than being a cat. ~ Emmett Spain

This country belongs to all of us. We made this country from nothing, from mud-flats ... Over 100 years ago, this was a mud-flat, swamp. Today, this is a modern city. Ten years from now, this will be a metropolis. Never fear! ~ Mr. Lee

JESUS & THE WEATHER

I don't think Jesus Who is Our Lord would have liked the weather in Limerick because it's always raining and the Shannon keeps the whole city damp. My father says the Shannon is a killer river because it killed my two brothers. When you look at pictures of Jesus He's always wandering around ancient Israel in a sheet. It never rains there and you never hear of anyone coughing or getting consumption or anything like that and no one has a job there because all they do is stand around and eat manna and shake their fists and go to crucifixions.

Anytime Jesus got hungry all He had to do was go up the road to a fig tree or an orange tree and have His fill. If He wanted a pint He could wave His hand over a big glass and there was the pint. Or He could visit Mary Magdalene and her sister, Martha, and they'd give Him His dinner no questions asked and He'd get his feet washed and dried with Mary Magdalene's hair while Martha washed the dishes, which I don't think is fair. Why should she have to wash the dishes while her sister sits out there chatting away with Our Lord? It's a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place because if he was born in Limerick he'd catch the consumption and be dead in a month and there wouldn't be any Catholic Church and there wouldn't be any Communion or Confirmation and we wouldn't have to learn the catechism and write compositions about Him.

The End. ~ Frank McCourt

On his back, Robert must have had time to see something beautiful, and not just the ugliness of a city street at the end of life. Even with the tremendous pain in his badly gutted belly he would have looked up beyond the fire escapes and the windows with their glittery trees and television glows, to the sky about the rooftops. A sky shimmery with the possibilities of the death; lights exaggerated, the heavens peeled back- a swirling haze of nebulae and comets - in some distant place, intimations of the new beginning into which he would soon journey ~ Oscar Hijuelos

Understand me: I wish to be a man from somewhere, a man among men. You see, a slave, when he passes by, weary and surly, carrying a heavy load, limping along and looking down at his feet, only at his feet to avoid falling down; he is in his town, like a leaf in greenery, like a tree in a forest, argos surrounds him, heavy and warm, full of herself; I want to be that slave, Electra, I want to pull the city around me and to roll myself up in it like a blanket. I will not leave. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

I fell in love with the most cordial and sociable city in the Union. ~ Mark Twain

I wonder what became of you, your Johnny
Rotten skin, no Emerald City eyes.
You'd have been a beauty if you let inferiority
steam your glasses with its candor, sans laughter. ~ Kristen Henderson

It is also hard to write about a city we just moved to; it's not yet in our body. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I see a time when the farmer will not need to live in a lonely cabin on a lonely farm. I see the farmers coming together in groups. I see them with time to read, and time to visit with their fellows. I see them enjoying lectures in beautiful halls, erected in every village. I see them gather like the Saxons of old upon the green at evening to sing and dance. I see cities rising near them with schools, and churches, and concert halls, and theaters. I see a day when the farmer will no longer be a drudge and his wife a bond slave, but happy men and women who will go singing to their pleasant tasks upon their fruitful farms. When the boys and girls will not go west nor to the city; when life will be worth living. In that day the moon will be brighter and the stars more glad, and pleasure and poetry and love of life come back to the man who tills the soil. ~ Hamlin Garland

When I have trouble sleeping, I'll read, watch old episodes of 'Sex and the City,' or dance around my house. Music helps me wind down. ~ Zoe Kravitz

To the one in the skies, this city must look like a scintillating pattern of speckled glows in all directions, like a firecracker going off amid thick darkness. Right now the urban pattern glowing here is in hues of orange, ginger, and ochre. It is a configuration of sparkles, each dot a light lit by someone awake at this hour. From where the Celestial Gaze is situated, from that high above, all these sporadically lit bulbs must seem in perfect harmony, constantly flickering, as if coding a cryptic message to God. ~ Elif Shafak

And she just wants everyone to remember -please remember- that once there was a darkly sparkling, glittering, shimmering, lovely dangerous time in this city when Aqua loved Jack.
And Jack loved Aqua.
And I loved Jack.
And Jack loved me.
And boys will be boys.
And boys will be girls.
And sometimes the show can't go on. ~ Josh Kilmer-Purcell

We were 6-4 and everybody doubted us. We lost to the Kansas City Chiefs and that week we had a players meeting and really talked about where we really want to go. It's not about the record. At the end of the day it comes down to are we going to keep focusing on each other and are we going to keep getting better day by day? We ignored the noise, we ignored all the talk from the outside. ~ Russell Wilson

SM Seaside City Cebu: soon to be the Philippines' Largest Mall and the 4th Largest in the World ~ Henry Sy

By contrast, the traditional revolutionary demand for council forms of organization (what Hannah Arendt describes as "the revolutionary heritage") does not break completely with the terrain of hierarchical society. Workers' councils originate as class councils. Unless one assumes that workers are driven by their interests as workers to revolutionary measures against hierarchical society (an assumption I flatly deny), then these councils can be used just as much to perpetuate class society as to destroy it. We shall see, in fact, that the council form contains many structural limitations which favor the development of hierarchy. For the present, it suffices to say that most advocates of workers' councils tend to conceive of people primarily as economic entities, either as workers or nonworkers. This conception leaves the onesidedness of the self completely intact. Man is viewed as a bifurcated being, the product of a social development that divides man from man and each man from himself.
Nor is this one-sided view completely corrected by demands for workers' management of production and the shortening of the work week, for these demands leave the nature of the work process and the quality of the worker's free time completely untouched. If workers' councils and workers' management of production do not transform the work into a joyful activity, free time into a marvelous experience, and the workplace into a community, then they remain merely formal structures, in fact, cla ~ Murray Bookchin

Bay in January 1788 under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip. On January 26, now celebrated as Australia Day, they set up camp in Sydney Cove, the heart of the modern city of Sydney. ~ Daron Acemoglu

You know what's funny is that I have this ongoing relationship with the city of Washington D.C. I went to George Washington University, and my nickname was K-Dub - based on G-Dub - and I'm now on the board of trustees at George Washington University. ~ Kerry Washington

A sickening howl stopped her, sucking the air out of her lungs.
The night's chatter silenced, even the loitering city rats pausing to listen.
Scarlet had heard wild wolves before, prowling the countryside in search of easy prey on the farms.
But never had a wolf's howl send a chill down her spine like that. ~ Marissa Meyer

When I was at university, there was such a strong delineation between city kids and those who had grown up the suburbs. City kids were so at home in the world, in a way that suburban kids take years to catch up, if indeed they ever can. ~ Meg Rosoff

He'd woken up the next day in the city hospital with Magnus Bane staring down at him with an odd expression
it could have been deep concern or merely curiosity, it was hard to tell with Magnus. ~ Cassandra Clare

The whole underneath of Paris was an ant nest, Metro tunnels, sewer shafts, catacombs, mines, cemeteries. She'd been down in the city of bones where skulls and femurs rose in yellowing walls. Right down there, win the square before them. through a dinky little entrance, were the Roman ruins like honeycomb. The trains went under the river. There were tunnels people had forgotten about. It was a wonder Paris stood up at all. The bit you saw was only half of it. Her skin burned, thinking of it. The Hunchback knew. Up here in the tower of Notre Dame he saw how it was. Now and then, with the bells rattling his bones, he saw it like God saw it
inside, outside, above and under
just for a moment. The rest of the time he went back to hurting and waiting like Scully out there crying in the wind. ~ Tim Winton

Esta rolled down the window, letting the hot breath of summer rustle across her face. With it came the familiar smells of the city, stale and heavy with the metallic choke of exhaust and the ripeness of too many people sharing one tiny piece of land. But it was also enticing - the scent of danger and possibility that lived and breathed in the crowded streets. Dirty and frantic though it was, the city - this city - was home. She'd never wanted to be anywhere else. ~ Lisa Maxwell

I mean, when you grow up in the inner city and you grow up in a single-parent household, that's - those are humbling times, you know? ~ LeBron James

1And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2aThis census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. 4Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to bthe city of David, which is called Bethlehem, cbecause he was of the house and lineage of David, 5to be registered with Mary, dhis betrothed 1wife, who was with child. 6So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. 7And eshe brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a 2manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. ~ Anonymous

These Claudines, then…they want to know because they believe they already do know, the way one who loves fruit knows, when offered a mango from the moon, what to expect; and they expect the loyal tender teasing affection of the schoolgirl crush to continue: the close and confiding companionship, the pleasure of the undemanding caress, the cuddle which consummates only closeness; yet in addition they want motherly putting right, fatherly forgiveness and almost papal indulgence; they expect that the sights and sounds, the glorious affairs of the world which their husbands will now bring before them gleaming like bolts of silk, will belong to the same happy activities as catching toads, peeling back tree bark, or powdering the cheeks with dandelions and oranging the nose; that music will ravish the ear the way the trill of the blackbird does; that literature will hold the mind in sweet suspense the way fairy tales once did; that paintings will crowd the eye with the delights of a colorful garden, and the city streets will be filled with the same cool dew-moist country morning air they fed on as children. But they shall not receive what they expect; the tongue will be about other business; one will hear in masterpieces only pride and bitter contention; buildings will have grandeur but no flowerpots or chickens; and these Claudines will exchange the flushed cheek for the swollen vein, and instead of companionship, they will get sex and absurd games composed of pinch, leer, and gig ~ William H. Gass

A city is a state - of mind, of taste, of opportunity. A city is a marketplace - where ideas are traded, opinions clash and eternal conflict may produce eternal truths. ~ Herb Caen

You cannot see the Milky Way in New York City any more ... We risk the loss of our sensual perception. And if you lose those, naturally, you try to compensate by other stimulations, by very loud noises, or by bright lights or drugs. ~ Rene Dubos

Others, faced with Turner's competitiveness were less contented. C.R. Leslie was on hand when Turner's Helvoetsluys, to start with "a grey pictre, beautiful and true, but with no positive colour in any part of it", was hung next to Constable's Opening of Waterloo Bridge Leslie wrote that Constable's painting looked as if painted with liquid gold and silver, and Turner came several times into the room while Constable was heightening with vermilion and lake the decorations and flags of the city barges. Turner stood behind Constable, looking from "Waterloo" to his own picture, and at last went and got his palette from the Great Room where he had been touching another picture. He then put a round daub of red lead,

"somewhat bigger than a shilling, on his grey sea, [and] went away without saying a word. The intensity of the red lead, made more vivid by the coolness of his picture, caused even the vermilion and lake of Constable to look weak. I came into the room just as Turner left it. "He as been here," Said Constable, "and fired a gun. ~ Anthony Bailey

and were willing to suffer pain if necessary." A young woman in the spring and summer of 1967 was walking toward a door just as that door was springing open. A stage was set for her adulthood that was so accommodatingly extreme - so whimsical, sensual, and urgent - that behavior that in any other era would carry a penalty for the daring was shielded and encouraged. There was safety in numbers for every gorgeous madness; good girls wanting to be bad hadn't had so much cover since the Jazz Age. San Francisco - glowing with psychedelic mystique, the whole city plastered with Fillmore and Avalon posters of tangle-haired goddess girls - was preparing for a convocation (of hapless runaways from provincial suburbs, it would turn out), the Summer of Love, through which the term "flower children" would be coined, while in harsh, emotion-sparking contrast, helicopters were dropping thousands of U.S. boys into the swamps of Vietnam. ~ Sheila Weller

I love running in nature. I don't like running on the streets, I don't like running in the city, I don't like running on the concrete. I love running in nature, so Jamaica provides a lot of that for me. ~ Ziggy Marley

Singapore is what your city could become if everyone obeyed the rules, did their jobs diligently, and just shut up. When your city gets to be this paragon of efficiency and discipline, would you still want to live there? Singapore is a model city, which is terrific if you happen to be a model human. ~ Jessica Zafra

You are a practical man, Elijah. You do not moon romantically over Earth's past, despite your healthy interest in it. Nor do you stubbornly embrace the City culture of Earth's present day. We felt that people such as yourself were the ones that could lead Earthmen to the stars once more. ~ Isaac Asimov