City Walls Quotes

They will not fight you all except within fortified cities or from behind walls…

By tradition, Beijing is a city of walls, sheltering its intrigues and ambitions behind a series of concentric barriers from the Great Wall down to courtyard homes that draw sunlight only from the gardens at their core.

In Peter Ackroyd's book 'London: The Biography,' he describes the route of the medieval wall that enclosed the original city. Take the book and follow it from the Tower of London via the Barbican to Ludgate Hill. You experience the real history of London.

Do you know what Agelisas said, when he was asked why the great city of Lacedomonie was not girded with walls? Because, pointing out the inhabitants and citizens of the city, so expert in military discipline and so strong and well armed: "Here," he said, "are the walls of the city," meaning that there is no wall but of bones, and that towns and cities can have no more secure nor stronger wall than the virtue of their citizens and inhabitants.

These are the walls of Sparta. Cities should be walled with the courage of the inhabitants.

Every place but that in which one is born is equally strange and wondrous. Once beyond the bounds of the city walls, and none knows what may happen. We have stepped forth into the Land of Faerie, but at least we are in the open air.

Sedentary people [city people] have become used to laziness and ease. They find full assurance of safety in the walls that surround them. The Bedouins have no gates and walls. They always carry weapons. They watch carefully all sides of the road. They take hurried naps only ….They pay attention to every barking and noise. Fortitude has become a character quality of theirs, and courage their nature.

The city of London, within the walls, occupies a space of only 370 acres, and is but the hundred and fortieth part of the extent covered by the whole metropolis.

That no attack should reach the walls of Babylon, I did what no earlier king had done … I caused mighty wall to be built on the East side of Babylon. I dug out a moat … I made the city of Babylon a fortress.

I knew that the wall was the main thing in Quebec, and had cost a great deal of money.... In fact, these are the only remarkable walls we have in North America, though we have a good deal of Virginia fence, it is true.