All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim.
~ Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins

Cities force growth, and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of each and every town or city.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men.
~ John Milton

What is the city but the people?
~ William Shakespeare

No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.
~ Cyril Connolly

Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.
~ Desmond Morris, The Human Zoo

Divine Nature gave the fields, human art built the cities.
~ Marcus Terentius Varro, De Re Rustica

The roaring street is hung for miles
With fierce electric fire.
~ William Vaughan Moody, In New York