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The City and the Country Quotes and Quotations
 A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.  A hick town is one in which there is no place to go where you shouldn't be. City life - millions of people being lonesome together. We might define an eccentric as a man who is law unto himself, and a crank as one who having determined what the law is, insists on laying it down to others. The country has charms only for those not obliged to stay there. A great city, a great solitude. In small settlements everyone knows your affairs. In the big city, everyone does not - only those you choose to tell will know about you. This is one of the attributes of cities that is precious to most city people. If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know and not be known, live in a city. Farmers worry only during the growing season, but town people worry all the time. What is the city but the people? As a remedy to life in society, I would suggest the big city. Nowadays it is the only desert within our reach. All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim. The chicken is the country's, but the city eats it. Cities force growth and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. The city is a cultural invention enforcing on the citizen knowledge of his own nature. And this we do not like. That we are aggressive beings, easily given to violence; that we get along together because we must more than because we want to, and that the brotherhood of man is about as far from reality today as it was two thousand years ago; that reason's realm is small; that we never have been and never shall be created equal; that if the human being is perfectible, he has so far exhibited few symptoms - all are considerations of man from which space tends to protect us. There is nothing good to be had in the country, or, if there be, they will not let you have it. Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there. The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of each and every town or city. To say the least, a town life makes one more tolerant and liberal in one's judgement of others. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. Summertime, oh, summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade-proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweetfern and the juniper forever and ever . . . the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design, their tiny docks with the flagpole and the American flag floating against the white clouds in the blue sky, the little paths over the roots of the trees leading from camp to camp. This was the American family at play, escaping the city heat. There is no solitude in the world like that of the big city. 
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