Mason Cooley Quotes

The city reveals the moral ends of being, and sets the awful problem of life. The country soothes us, refreshes us, lifts us up with religious suggestion.

A contrast between country and city, as fundamental ways of life, reaches back into classical times.

City life is no life for a country man; for such a man that life is a kind of damnation in itself.

When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

The city mouse lives in a house, The garden mouse lives in a bower

I prefer the country life. I live in Kingston, but there is lots of trees.

I need both to feel good: the energy of the city and the quietness of the country.

I grew up in this little farm town, and I've always dreamt of Hollywood and pop culture, and then I suddenly found myself plopped in the middle of it.

In cities no one is quiet but many are lonely; in the country, people are quiet but few are lonely.

Cities are like a bee hive. There is a hum to them. You can tell what is going on in the city from the hum.

the simplicity & quiet ease of village life, is all humbug. The city is the only place to gain a knowledge of the world.

When mayors get together they probably have better conversations and have better notes to share about running different cities, and just do what suits. Basically, like when you combine all the religions and take the best bits, you should be able to combine all the cities and take the best bits, the information, the tried and tested things.

The virtue of the country is that it makes you thirsty for the city.

Where should the scholar live? In solitude, or in society? in the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of Nature beat, or in the dark, gray town where he can hear and feel the throbbing heart of man?

A city man is a home anywhere, for all big cities are much alike. But a country man has a place where he belongs, where he always returns, and where, when the time comes, he is willing to die.

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other.

From here, far away, people seem very good, and that is natural, for in going away into the country we are not hiding from people but from our vanity, which in town among people is unjust and active beyond measure.

When we deal with cities we are dealing with life at its most complex and intense. Because this is so, there is a basic esthetic limitation on what can be done with cities: a city cannot be a work of art.

There never was a law yet made, I conceive, that hit the taste exactly of every man, or every part of the community; of course, if this be a reason for opposition, no law can be executed at all without force, and every man or set of men will in that case cut and carve for themselves; the consequences of which must be deprecated by all classes of men, who are friends to order, and to the peace and happiness of the country.

There is virtue in country houses, in gardens and orchards, in fields, streams and groves, in rustic recreations and plain manners, that neither cities nor universities enjoy.

Rampaging horsemen can conquer; only the city can civilize.

Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.

No wise man will go to live in the country, unless he has something to do which can be better done in the country. For instance, if he is to shut himself up for a year to study science, it is better to look out to the fields, than to an opposite wall. Then, if a man walks out in the country, there is nobody to keep him from walking in again: but if a man walks out in London, he is not sure when he will walk in again. A great city is, to be sure, the school for studying life.

one day in the country is exactly like another.

I'd like to be in the country so that I'd could like being in the city.