This is worth a vanity of its own.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
The mobs of great cities add just so much to support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body
I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice.
Thomas Jefferson