Philadelphia

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the second largest city on the East Coast of the United States, and the fifth-most-populous city in the United States. It is located in the Northeastern United States at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, and it is the only consolidated city-county in Pennsylvania. Popular nicknames for Philadelphia are Philly and The City of Brotherly Love, the latter of which comes from the literal meaning of the city's name in Greek "brotherly love", compounded from philos (φίλος) "loving", and adelphos (ἀδελφός) "brother").

Philadelphia skyline

Philadelphia skyline, viewed from the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Philadelphia City Hall

Quotes

• Philadelphia now has only two attractions left: the Liberty Bell and myself.
  • Ping Bodie, after learning that teammates Joe Bush, Wally Schang, Amos Strunk and Stuffy McInnis had all been dealt to Boston by Connie Mack; as quoted in "Yankees Get Bodie from Connie Mack," Long Branch Daily Record (March 8, 1918), p. 7

• Everyone said that Philadelphia had once been a fortress of anarchism, having had a whole range of good orators in Yiddish and English. Comrades had been active. They had organized unions of cloak makers, bakers, vest makers, and other trades. They had held anarchist rallies close to City Hall every Sunday, attended by masses of people. Yiddish gatherings had been well attended.
• Joseph Cohen "The Jewish Anarchist Movement in America" translated into English by Emil Kerenji

• Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and what you are, in Philadelphia, now. He that can give to his city any blessing, he who can be a good citizen while he lives here, he that can make better homes, he that can be a blessing whether he works in the shop or sits behind the counter or keeps house, whatever be his life, he who would be great anywhere must first be great in his own Philadelphia.
  • Russell Conwell, Acres of Diamonds (1915), p. 59.

• It is a handsome city, but distractingly regular. After walking about it for an hour or two, I felt that I would have given the world for a crooked street. The collar of my coat appeared to stiffen, and the brim of my hat to expand, beneath its Quakerly influence.
  • Charles Dickens, American Notes (1842), ch. VII.

• Here lies W. C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia.
  • W. C. Fields, this was an epitaph Fields proposed for himself in a 1925 article in Vanity Fair. It refers to his long standing jokes about Philadelphia (his actual birthplace), and the grave being one place he might actually not prefer to be. This is often repeated as "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.", or "All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." which he might have stated at other times. It has also sometimes been distorted into a final dig at Philadelphia: "Better here than in Philadelphia." Fields' actual tomb at Forest Lawn in Glendale, California simply reads "W. C. Fields 1880–1946".

• They say that the lady from Philadelphia who is staying in town is very wise.
  Suppose I go ask her what is best to be done.
  • Lucretia P. Hale, Peterkin Papers, Chapter I, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 594.

• Hail! Philadelphia, tho' Quaker thou be,
  The birth-day of medical honors to thee
  In this country belongs; 'twas thou caught the flame,
  That crossing the ocean from Englishmen came
  And kindled the fires of Wisdom and Knowledge,
  Inspired the student, erected a college,
  First held a commencement with suitable state,
  In the year of our Lord, seventeen sixty-eight.
  • William Todd Helmuth, The Story of a City Doctor, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 594.

• `Cause I live and breathe this Philadelphia freedom.
  From the day that I was born I've waved the flag.
  Philadelphia freedom took me knee-high to a man.
  Yeah gave me peace of mind my daddy never had.

  Oh Philadelphia freedom shine on me, I love you.
  Shine a light through the eyes of the ones left behind.
  Shine a light, shine a light
  Shine a light, won't you shine a light.
  Philadelphia freedom I love you, yes I do.

  • Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Philadelphia Freedom (1975)

• Philadelphia was the first city to foresee the advantages of a Federal constitution and oatmeal as a breakfast food.
  • Christopher Morley, Travels in Philadelphia (1920)

• I imagine they'll boo me in Philadelphia just as they did in Boston. That can be a rough town. I read where they even booed Richie Allen there.
  • Dick Stuart, as quoted in "Stuart Terms Trade to Phils 'Lopsided'" by Milton Richman (UPI), The Boston Globe (November 30, 1964), p. 34

• Philadelphia fans don't discriminate enough. They boo everybody. In Boston and Pittsburgh, they only booed me.
  • Dick Stuart, circa 1965; as quoted in "Stuart's Quip High on List" by Harold Kaese, in The Boston Globe (December 30, 1965), p. 17.

• Why, this is the finest city in the state of Maryland!
  • Colonel Thomas Cresap, 1736: Exclaimed, while marched as a prisoner into Philadelphia, during Cresap's War, a 1730–1767 border dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania; Jacob, John Jeremiah (1866). A Biographical Sketch of the Life of the Late Captain Michael Cresap .... Re-printed from the Cumberland ed. of 1826, with notes and appendix for W. Dodge, by J. F. Uhlhorn, steam job printer. p. 32. ISBN 9780405028632. 

External links

• Official City of Philadelphia web site.