These London Quotes will (probably) make you want to visit: Sayings about the City You’ll Want to Repeat

There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear — the city of London and the South Seas. – Herman Melville, The South Seas, 1859. The iconic American novelist is perhaps most famous for penning Moby Dick and lived in London for a short while in the mid-1800s.

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world. – Oscar Wilde. Irish poet and writer, Oscar Wilde, was one of London’s most popular playwrights in the 1890s. His most famous works include the Portrait of Dorian Gray and the Importance of Being Earnest. 

By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show. – Samuel Johnson. Also known as Dr Johnson, the English poet, writer, biographer, and critic, he was forced to leave Oxford University (where he had won a place) aged just 19 after he ran out of funds to pay his expenses. It was not until several years later that Johnson moved to London and remained there for much of the rest of his life.

It is not the walls that make the city, but the people who live within them. The walls of London may be battered, but the spirit of the Londoner stands resolute and undismayed. –George VI. The current Queen’s father (Elizabeth II’s Dad) ruled the UK from 1936 until his death in 1947. He spoke these words on the 23rd September 1940, during the height of WWII.

I came to London. It had become the centre of my world and I had worked hard to come to it. And I was lost. – V.S. Naipaul. A writer, novelist, travel writer, and Nobel Laureate, Naipaul has published over thirty books over a career spanning more than fifty years. 

London is a splendid place to live in for those who can get out of it. – George John Gordon Bruch, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, 1944

In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea.– John Osborne. English playwright, actor and screenwriter, Osborne was best known for his criticism of established social and cultural norms. He was born in London and spent much of the rest of his life in the UK capital city.

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford. – Samuel Johnson, composer of the Dictionary. Today, his old house is located in Gough Square and is one of the most secret spots in London to look out for on your next visit. That is, if you can find it!

A person who is tired of London is not necessarily tired of life; it might be that he just can’t find a parking place. – Paul Theroux. Travel writer and novelist, Theroux is also a literary critic who has spent time living in London. His funny take on Samuel Johnson’s quote can be found in ‘Sunrise with Seamonsters’. 

One might fancy that day, the London day, was just beginning. Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls, the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, colour; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung. I resign, the evening seemed to say, as it paled and faded above the battlements and prominences, moulded, pointed, of hotel, flat, and block of shops, I fade, she was beginning. I disappear, but London would have none of it and rushed her bayonets into the sky, pinioned her, constrained her to partnership in her revelry. – Virginia Wolf, Mrs. Dalloway.