Pithy Quotes on the London Subway
Wednesday, August 05, 2009 12:35 PM
Three million passengers a day ride the London subway, known as the Tube or the Underground.
And one prize-winning artist has found a way to weave art and poetry into those rides to help break up what he calls the monotony of train announcements, reports The Los Angeles Times. (The photo on the left is by Andy Rain/EPA and appeared in the LAT).
So instead of hearing, "Please take your belongings with you," now passengers could hear a quote from William Shakespere, or a Swedish proverb, or a quote from Karl Marx.
Artist Jeremy Deller had initially proposed a day of no announcements at all on the train. Officials nixed that idea, so Deller suggested operators could read from a manual of quotes and witty sayings. This time Transport for London, which operates the Underground, agreed.
"I thought it would be nice to hear something with a higher meaning or a resonance with the traveler," Deller told the Los Angeles Times.
Here are some of the quotes: 
"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory." - Friedrich Engels.
"The afternoon knows what the morning never expected." - Swedish proverb.
"A throne is only a bench covered in velvet." - Napoleon Bonaparte.
"There's more to life than increasing its speed." - Mohandas Gandhi.
What do passengers think about the witty art? Some have welcomed the effort, while one asked for Valium, not poetry. Click here to read comments from London commuters.
The booklet of quotations was given to all 1,500 train operators of the Piccadilly Line, the subway's second busiest line. It's up to the operators to decide if they want to read from the booklet -and they can read whenever the mood strikes.