No, no, I will not live among the wild scenes of nature, the enemy of all that lives. I will seek the towns– Rome, the capital of the world, the crown of man's achievements. Among its storied streets, hallowed ruins, and stupendous remains of human exertion, I shall not, as here, find every thing forgetful of man; trampling on his memory, defacing his works, proclaiming from hill to hill, and vale to vale, –by the torrents freed from the boundaries which he imposed–by the vegetation liberated from the laws which he enforced–by his habitation abandoned to mildew and weeds, that his power is lost, his race annihilated for ever. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
About This Quote

In his letter to the English philosopher John Locke, writer and political leader Napoleon Bonaparte wrote: “No, no, I will not live among the wild scenes of nature, the enemy of all that lives. I will seek the towns—Rome, the capital of the world, the crown of man's achievements. Among its storied streets, hallowed ruins, and stupendous remains of human exertion, I shall not, as here, find everything forgetful of man; trampling on his memory, defacing his works, proclaiming from hill to hill and vale to vale—by the torrents freed from the boundaries which he imposed—by the vegetation liberated from the laws which he enforced—by his habitation abandoned to mildew and weeds that his power is lost, his race annihilated for ever.”

Source: The Last Man

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