Cleveland Quotes

“My heart is in Cleveland.”

“CLEVELAND! This is for you!”

“Cleveland is a place where you actually can achieve something, where you can do something, where you can change something.”

“I do not believe there is a city in the country where the electorate is so well informed upon local political questions, nor upon the rights of the people as opposed to the privileges of corporations, as it is in Cleveland.”

“For a brief time in Cleveland, I was the man of power. I had what no black man in this country has had before: direct control of the government of a predominantly white population.”

“When Donald Trump accepts the Republican nomination on Thursday in Cleveland, it will represent a stunning moment in American politics - The triumph of a raw populism, embodied by a shameless demagogue, over both the official establishment and the official ideology of a major political party.”

“It may be said that the people of Cleveland are opposites to the people of Texas; instead of boasting about the city's attributes, they dwell eloquently on its deficiencies to the extent, often, where outsiders feel compelled to take up the Cleveland cause in a curious reversal of normal American procedure.”

“I was super, super ecstatic to win one for Cleveland because of the 52-year drought. ... The first wave of emotion was when everyone saw me crying, like, that was all for 52 years of everything in sports that's gone on in Cleveland. And then after I stopped, I was like -- that one right there made you the greatest player of all time.”

“While I was in New Connecticut, I laid out a town, on the bank of Lake Erie, which was called by my name, and I believe the child is now born that may live to see that place as large as Old Windham.”

“Cleveland has been a city in which "caretaker" mayors, men like Ralph S. Locher, Anthony J. Celebrezze and Frank J. Lausche, could respond mainly to public relations and ignore the gut issues.”

“Cleveland is a formidable city. It is a city with the biceps of industry and it has a rough-hewn manner that is indigenous to the Midwest of America. Cleveland also has some of the charm and grace of an old European city and, withal, it shows indisputable traces of its New England heritage as no other city west of the Alleghenies does.”

“I always believed that I’d return to Cleveland and finish my career there. I just didn’t know when. After the season, free agency wasn’t even a thought. But I have two boys and my wife, Savannah, is pregnant with a girl. I started thinking about what it would be like to raise my family in my hometown. I looked at other teams, but I wasn’t going to leave Miami for anywhere except Cleveland. The more time passed, the more it felt right. This is what makes me happy.”

“With almost thirty thousand inhabitants [in 1855], Cleveland was a boomtown that would have thrilled any young man avid for business experience. It had drawn many transplants from New England who had brought along the Puritan mores and Yankee trading culture of their old hometowns. While the streets were largely unpaved and the town lacked a sewage system, Cleveland was expanding rapidly, with immigrants pouring in from Germany and England as well as the eastern seaboard.”

“For all practical purposes, though – and hang the technicalities – everything east of the [Cuyahoga] river constitutes the East Side. Everything west of the river can be considered the West Side. That is the realistic view taken by Clevelanders. When two Clevelanders meet for the first time, they fence conversationally until the vital question of East or West is answered. Knowing which side of town a new acquaintance comes from makes a subtle difference.”

“The Cuyahoga's serpentine course and narrow physical limitations did not blind early observers to its special credentials and its great potential. Among the far-sighted ones were Benjamin Franklin, who in 1765 saw the military advantages in the establishment of an army post at the place where the Cuyahoga flows into Lake Erie, and George Washington, who recognized the practicability of a trade-and-travel connection of the Ohio River and the Great Lakes by way of the Cuyahoga and the Muskingum rivers and foresaw the day when a great city would rise on the site.”

“There were Hanna Democrats as well as Hanna Republicans – not that Hanna was the enthroned boss in the same sense that Cox is the boss of Cincinnati or Murphy of New York. Cleveland wasn't bossed by any one man. The city government belonged to the business interests generally.”

“I cannot forget the words of a New Yorker who ventured as far west as Cleveland a few years ago. He looked at the vast sweep of the forested city, the soft gray-blue lake lapping at the foot of the high bluffs, the ubiquitous placement of beautiful residential neighborhoods and parks, and he blinked. 'This Cleveland,' he said, pondering, 'has to be the best kept secret in the United States.' What he meant to say, of course, was that it was a secret to other Americans. Not the Russians. That is one thing you have to say about those Russians – they are quick to notice a good thing like Cleveland.”