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CIRCUMSTANCES & CITIES

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CIRCUMSTANCES

see: "ACCIDENTS"
see: "CHANCE"
see: "DESTINY"
see: "FATE"
see: "LIFE"

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To everything there is a season, and
a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and
a time to die;
[...]
A time to weep, and
a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and
a time to dance;
[...]
A time to love, and
a time to hate;
a time of war; and
a time of peace.

--_Bible_:
"Ecclesiastes" 3:1-8

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Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
--William Cowper (1731—1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
"A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Newton"

Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances
are the creatures of man. We are free agents, and man
is more powerful than matter.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804—1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and
Prime Minister [1868, 1874-1880].
_Vivian Grey_, v. II, bk. VI, ch. 7 [1827]

The whole world seemed so unequal, so unfair.
Some people were created with all the good
things ready-made for them, others were just
created like mistakes. God's mistakes.
--Buchi Emecheta (b. 1944)
Nigerian novelist.
_Second-Class Citizen_ [1974]

A man is not little when he finds it difficult to cope with
circumstances, but when circumstances overmaster
him.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
Quoted in John Stuart Blackie
_The Wisdom of Goethe_, p. 7 [1883].

To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every
pleasure and convenience of our lives.
--Oliver Goldsmith (1728—1774)
Anglo-Irish writer, poet, and dramatist.
_Vicar of Wakefield_, ch. XXI [1766 novel, completed 1762]

We must cut our coat according to our cloth,
and adapt ourselves to changing circumstances.
--William Ralph Inge (1860—1954)
English writer and Dean of St. Paul's [1911—1934].
_Lay Thoughts of a Dean_ [1926]

There are no circumstances, however unfortunate,
that clever people don't extract some advantage
from.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.
In _Moral Reflections, Sentences and Maxims of Francis, Duc de
La Rochefoucauld_, p. 21 [William Gowans, New York, 1851].

Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstances,
it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect
of circumstance. It is character which builds an existence
out of circumstance.
--George Henry Lewes (1817—1878)
English philosopher and literary critic.
_The Lives and Works of Goethe_, vol. 1 [2nd ed., 1858]

Superiority to circumstances is one of the
most prominent characteristics of great men.
--Horace Mann (1796—1859)
American educator.
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 72 [1886].

People are always blaming their
circumstances for what they are.
I don't believe in circumstances.
The people who get on in this
world are the people who get up
and look for the circumstances
they want, and, if they can't
find them, make them.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]
_Mrs. Warren's Profession_, act II [1893, first performed in 1902.]

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For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these, 'It might have been!'
--John Greenleaf Whittier (1807—1892)
American poet.
"Maud Miller" [1854]

& note:

If, of all the words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, 'It might have been,'
More sad are these we daily see:
'It is, but hasn't ought to be!'
--[Francis] Bret Harte (1836—1902)
American author.
"Mrs. Judge Jenkins" [1867]

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You cannot tailor-make the situations in life, but you
can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations.
--attributed to Zig [Hilary Hinton] Ziglar (b. 1926)
American author and motivational speaker.




CITIES

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see: "COUNTRY LIVING"
see: "NEIGHBORS"
see: "PLACES" for other related links


[Of Oxford:]
That sweet City with her dreaming spires.
--Matthew Arnold (1822—1888)
English Victorian poet and literary and social critic.
"Thyrsis" l.19 [1866]

Great stir and bustle prevails at Constantinople in
consequence of the great conflux of merchants who
resort thither from all parts of the world, from Babylon,
from Medea, from Persia, from Egypt and Palestine
as well as from Russia, Hungary, Italy and Spain. In
this respect the city is equalled only by Baghdad,
the metropolis of the Muslims.
--Benjamin of Tudela (fl. 12th cent.)
Spanish-Jewish rabbi who was the first
known European traveler to approach the frontiers of China.
_Masa'ot Binyamin_ (The Voyages of Benjamin)

I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture.
--Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto III, st. 72 [1816]

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If you would be known and not know, vegetate in a
village. If you would know and not be known, live
in a city.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
_Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words_, CCCXXXIV [1821 ed.]


Men, by associating in large masses, as in camps and
cities, improve their talents but impair their virtues;
and strengthen their minds, but weaken their morals;
thus a retrocession in the one is too often the price
they pay for a refinement of the other.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
Attributed in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 344 [1891].

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The city is an epitome of the social world. All the belts
of civilization intersect along its avenues. It contains the
products of every moral zone. It is cosmopolitan, not
only in a national, but a spiritual sense.
--Edwin Hubbel Chapin (1814—1880)
American clergyman and author.
Quoted in James Comper Gray
_The Biblical Museum_, v. 5, p. 341 [5 vol., 1873].

Cities force growth, and make men talkative
and entertaining, but they make them artificial.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Society and Solitude_ [1870] "Farming"

Between about 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. the life of the city is civil.
Occasionally the lone footsteps of someone walking to or
from work echo along the sidewalk. All work that has to be
done at those hours is useful — in bakeries, for example.
Even the newspaper presses stop turning forests into lies.
Now and then a car comes out of the silence and cruises
easily through the blinking traffic lights. The natural
inhabitants of the city come out from damp basements
and cellars. With their pink ears and paws, sleek, well-
groomed, their whisker combed, rats are true city dwellers.
Urban life, during the hours when they reign, is urbane.
--Henry Fairlie (1924—1990)
British author.
"The Idiocy of Urban Life" [1987]

[Of Chicago:]
I like it in spite of lake-wind sharpness and prairie
flatness, damp tunnels, swinging bridges, hard water,
and easy divorces. ... A lady from the East lately said
of it, very charmingly, "It is New York with the heart
left in.'
--Grace Greenwood [pseud. of Sara Jane Lippencott] (1823—1904)
American poet, newspaper woman, and essayist.
_New Life in New Lands_ [1873]

I have struck a city, — a real city,— and they call it Chicago. The
other places do not count. San Francisco was a pleasure-resort as
well as a city, and Salt Lake was a phenomenon. This place is the
first American city I have encountered. . . . Having seen it, I
urgently desire to never see it again. It is inhabited by savages.
--Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)
English writer and poet.
_American Notes_ [1891]

No other city in the United States can divest
the visitor of so much money with so little
enthusiasm. In Dallas, they take it away
with gusto; in New Orleans, with a bow;
in San Francisco, with a wink and a grin.
In New York, you're lucky if you get a
grunt.
--Fletcher Knebel (1911—1993)
American journalist and author.
In "Look" magazine [26 March 1963].

The outdoors is what you must pass through
to get from your apartment to a taxicab.
--Fran Lebowitz (b. 1946)
American humorist.
Quoted in "Mademoiselle" [1976].

The city is not a concrete jungle,
it is a human zoo.
--Desmond Morris (b. 1928)
English anthropologist and author.
_The Human Zoo_ [1969]

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I dwelt in a city enchanted,
And lonely, indeed, was my lot;
Two guineas a week, all I wanted,
Was certainly all that I got.
Well, somehow I found it was plenty,
Perhaps you may find it the same,
If— *if* you are just five-and-twenty,
With industry, hope, and an aim:
Though the latitude's rather uncertain,
And the longitude also is vague,
The persons I pity who know not the City,
The beautiful City of Prague!
--William Jeffery Prowse (1836—1870)
English poet.
_The City of Prague_, st. 1
"Fun" (penny magazine) [1867]

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The cities of America are inexpressibly tedious.
The Bostonians take their learning too sadly:
culture with them is an accomplishment rather
than an atmosphere; their 'Hub,' as they call
it, is the paradise of prigs. Chicago is a sort
of monster-shop, full of bustle and bores.
Political life at Washington is like political
life in a suburban vestry. Baltimore is amusing
for a week, but Philadelphia is dreadfully
provincial; and though one can dine in New
York, one could not dwell there.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_The American Invasion_ in the "Court and Society Review" [March 1887].

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boulevardier (noun):
1. A frequenter of city boulevards, especially in Paris.
2. A sophisticated, worldly, and socially active man; a
man who frequents fashionable places; a man-about-town.


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