Lyrics
Home Secretary Charles Clarke, BBC radio, July 2005 following the London bombings
Book 2, Chapter 2
Discourses on Livy (1517)
Context: It is truly a marvelous thing to consider to what greatness Athens arrived in the space of one hundred years after she freed herself from the tyranny of Pisistratus; but, above all, it is even more marvelous to consider the greatness Rome reached when she freed herself from her kings. The reason is easy to understand, for it is the common good and not private gain that makes cities great. Yet, without a doubt, this common good is observed only in republics, for in them everything that promotes it is practised, and however much damage it does to this or that private individual, those who benefit from the said common good are so numerous that they are able to advance in spite of the inclination of the few citizens who are oppressed by it.
2010s
Source: Joao Medeiros. " The city in numbers: An equation that explains urban life http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/05/start/the-city-in-numbers," in wired.co.uk/magazine 29 March 2011.
“Love of money is the mother-city (metropolis) of all evils.”
As quoted by Stobaeus, iii.10.37
“Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.”
Variant translation: Oft hath even a whole city reaped the evil fruit of a bad man.
Source: Works and Days (c. 700 BC), line 240.
