Famous quotes containing the words public and/or house:
“It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions.... Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament—are its leading features.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“There are no such oysters, terrapin, or canvas-back ducks as there were in those days; the race is extinct. It is strange how things degenerate.... I passed, the other day, the deserted house of Mrs. Gerry, which I used to think so lordly. It stands alone now amid the surrounding sky-scrapers, and reminds me of Don Quixote going out to fight the windmills. It should always remain to mark the difference between the past and the present.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)