Source: The Metropolis and Modern Life (1903), p. 420
“Cities are, first of all, seats of the highest economic division of labor. They produce thereby such extreme phenomena as in Paris the remunerative occupation of the quatorzième.”
They are persons who identify themselves by signs on their residences and who are ready at the dinner hour in correct attire, so that they can be quickly called upon if a dinner party should consist of thirteen persons. In the measure of its expansion, the city offers more and more the decisive conditions of the division of labor. It offers a circle which through its size can absorb a highly diverse variety of services.
Source: The Metropolis and Modern Life (1903), p. 420
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Georg Simmel 27
German sociologist, philosopher, and critic 1858–1918Related quotes

The Marshall Plan Speech (1947)
Context: There is a phase of this matter which is both interesting and serious. The farmer has always produced the foodstuffs to exchange with the city dweller for the other necessities of life. This division of labor is the basis of modern civilization. At the present time it is threatened with breakdown. The town and city industries are not producing adequate goods to exchange with the food-producing farmer. Raw materials and fuel are in short supply. Machinery is lacking or worn out. The farmer or the peasant cannot find the goods for sale which he desires to purchase. So the sale of his farm produce for money which he cannot use seems to him an unprofitable transaction. He, therefore, has withdrawn many fields from crop cultivation and is using them for grazing. He feeds more grain to stock and finds for himself and his family an ample supply of food, however short he may be on clothing and the other ordinary gadgets of civilization. Meanwhile, people in the cities are short of food and fuel, and in some places approaching the starvation levels. So the governments are forced to use their foreign money and credits to procure these necessities abroad. This process exhausts funds which are urgently needed for reconstruction. Thus a very serious situation is rapidly developing which bodes no good for the world.
“Paris is the happiest city in the world tonight. All Paris is dancing in the streets.”
Goldstein, Richard. " Larry LeSueur, Pioneering War Correspondent, Dies at 93 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/07/arts/larry-lesueur-pioneering-war-correspondent-dies-at-93.html", (obituary), The New York Times, February 7, 2003, accessed June 21, 2011, from a radio broadcast following the 1944 Liberation of Paris.

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Source: Principles of industrial organization, 1913, p. 37

“Division of labor is a justification for sloth.”
Source: Path of Life (1909), p. 79