A.J. Jacobs Quotes

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.

Streets and their sidewalks-the main public places of a city-are its most vital organs.

Designing a dream city is easy; rebuilding a living one takes imagination.

There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.

Intricate minglings of different uses in cities are not a form of chaos. On the contrary, they represent a complex and highly developed form of order.

While you are looking, you might as well also listen, linger and think about what you see.

The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any one place is always replete with new improvisations.

This is something everyone knows: A well-used city street is apt to be a safe street. A deserted city street is apt to be unsafe.

People must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other.

This is what a city is, bits and pieces that supplement each other and support each other.

Lowly, unpurposeful and random as they may appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change from which a city's wealth of public life may grow.

All through organized history, if you wanted prosperity you had to have cities. Cities are places that attract new people with new ideas.

Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it.

To me, clothing is a form of self-expression - there are hints about who you are in what you wear.

Cities are an immense laboratory of trial and error, failure and success, in city building and city design.

The point of cities is multiplicity of choice.

I always find beauty in things that are odd and imperfect - they are much more interesting.

You can never please everyone, and I think it's best not to.

Let's do what we love and do a lot of it.

I like people who have a sense of individuality. I love expression and anything awkward and imperfect, because that’s natural and that’s real.

There is no new world that you make without the old world.

Teachers need to integrate technology seamlessly into the curriculum instead of viewing it as an add-on, an afterthought, or an event.

Life is a fashion show, the world is your runway.

The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.

There are no bonds so strong as those which are formed by suffering together

Change is a great and horrible thing, and people love it or hate it at the same time. Without change, however, you just don't move.

A region is an area safely larger than the last one to whose problems we found no solution.

I wouldn't know how to find eBay on the computer if my life depended on it.

I've been getting into drinking smoothies in the morning - I like those a lot.

There is never a wrong time for a polka dot.

Forgiveness is the highest and most difficult of all moral lessons.

Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great and powerful one.

One thing that is exciting about fashion is the surprise element. People don't know what they want. They just know when they see it.

What's worked for me is not quitting and being passionate about what I do and not giving up - and when I don't believe in myself, turning to others who believe in me.

Even mistakes can get you one step further.

But look what we have built ... This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.

You can't rely on bringing people downtown, you have to put them there.

There are wrongs which even the grave does not bury.

Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them.

Luxury is about pleasing yourself, not dressing for other people

When they told me my new-born babe was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.

Writing, printing, and the Internet give a false sense of security about the permanence of culture.

Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.

[Cities] are not like suburbs, only denser. They differ from towns and suburbs in basic ways, and one of these is that cities are, by definition, full of strangers.

New ideas must use old buildings

I am trying to break free from my stripes addiction, but the pull is strong! I need help buying non-stripes.

...frequent streets and short blocks are valuable because of the fabric of intricate cross-use that they permit among the users of a city neighbouhood.

Never underestimate the power of a city to regenerate.

Fashion is just something money can buy. People who are stylish are free and have no fear in staying true to themselves. Plus, style is infinitely more interesting.

The trouble with paternalists is that they want to make impossibly profound changes, and they choose impossibly superficial means for doing so.