Quotations: What People Have to Say About Philadelphia

They say that a picture’s worth a thousand words, but sometimes a well-placed quote says everything. Here’s some quintessential quotes about Philadelphia from poets, politicians, sportsmen, authors and more. It’s hard not to love Philly once you’ve visited, and these famous Philly quotations show that the spark of love for our fair city is easy to ignite in all of us.

About Our Sports Fans

 
Philadelphia stadiums house the most monstrous collection of humanity outside of the federal penal system. – GQ Magazine

2018
Whether fan or whether foe,
Loyalty to city was the only way to go,
They now have a Lombardi Trophy to show,
Philadelphia Eagles stole the show. – Charmaine J Forde
 

About Our Sports Teams

 
The only thing I can cheer for in Philadelphia is the national anthem. – Bill Belichick

Philadelphians (Who May Or May Not Be Sports Fans)

I’ve never known a Philadelphian who wasn’t a downright ‘character’; possibly a defense mechanism resulting from the dullness of their native habitat. – Anita Loos

I see far stronger and more charismatic personalities strolling around Philadelphia’s neighborhoods than are being featured in most of today’s bland daytime soaps. – Camille Paglia

A heat map showing national use of the F word on Twitter had only one bright red circle on it, and Philadelphia was right in the middle of that circle. – Ian Douglass

In Boston, they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents? – Mark Twain

Patriotism

 
The very first words that we, the American nation, spoke were right here in Philadelphia. You know those words: “We the people.” It wasn’t, “We the conglomerates.” It wasn’t, “We the corporations.” It was, “We the people. – Al Gore

The Constitution was written by 55 educated and highly intelligent men in Philadelphia in 1787, but it was written so that it could be understood by people of limited education and modest intelligence. – John Jay Hooker

THAT FOOD, THO

 
The local love for microbrewing, dating to the late 1600s, shows up on beer lists so intricately compiled they’d be described as curated in more pretentious cities. (Yes, Brooklyn, I mean you.) Epic jukeboxes and random dartboards, roasted meat and melted cheese, super-hard-to-find beers and whiskey neat — all served up without judgment in an American stronghold for going big into the wee hours. – Esquire Magazine

Through it all there was a continuous thread of something ineffably Philly: bright and optimistic, entirely unpretentious and yet exacting in quality. When it comes to eating, this city is operating miles beyond the cheesesteak. – Saveur Magazine

Our Founding Fathers bickered over inalienable human rights while tossing back brews in the dark corners of ye olde Philly taverns, and this town’s only become more beer-crazy in the ensuing 236 years. – Esquire Magazine

Cultural Musings

 
World-class museums, cutting-edge galleries, and ubiquitous street murals make this city a trove of creative riches. – New York Magazine

Sick Burn, Man

 
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is a house of artistic and intellectual prostitution. – Albert C. Barnes
I once spent a year in Philadelphia, I think it was on a Sunday. – W.C. Fields
 

Philadelphia Freedom

New York is a place where people go to reinvent themselves; Philadelphia is a place where people discover who they are. – Chef Peter McAndrews

I love the dignity in the name Philadelphia, but at heart, we’re Philly. – Lisa Scottoline

Like Nowhere Else On Earth

 
From the floor, I see the tops of the Philadelphia skyline out of her window. Staring at it, I realize that the night sky isn’t really black, which is the way I’ve always thought of it. It’s actually a dark shade of blue, the darkest possible. – Siobhan Vivian

He had heard especially promising things about Philadelphia–the lively capital of that young nation. It was said to be a city with a good-enough shipping port, central to the eastern coast of the country, filled with pragmatic Quakers, pharmacists, and hardworking farmers. It was rumored to be a place without haughty aristocrats (unlike Boston), and without pleasure-fearing puritans (unlike Connecticut), and without troublesome self-minted feudal princes (unlike Virginia). The city had been founded on the sound principles of religious tolerance, a free press, and good landscaping, by William Penn–a man who grew tree saplings in bathtubs, and who had imagined his metropolis as a great nursery of both plants and ideas. – Elizabeth Gilbert

The greatest thing that’s ever happened to me was coming here.” – Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay

I never walked through the streets of any city with as much satisfaction as those of Philadelphia. The neatness and cleanliness of all animate and inanimate things, houses, pavements, and citizens, is not to be surpassed. – Frances Wright