London, London, there’s nowhere quite like London. I called this beautiful city home for 4 years and I’m still convinced that there’s nowhere better in the world. From the upmarket neighbourhoods of Kensington and Chelsea, to the somewhat seedier streets and back alleys, London is full of life. And I’m not the only person who thinks so. For hundreds of years, writers, politicians, artists, and poets have extolled the wonders of this city, providing us with a plethora of perfect London quotes.
So if you’re looking for that perfect Instagram caption, you’re in the right place. Or maybe you’re on the hunt for some wise words to inspire your next visit to England’s capital. Either way, these London quotes are just for you.
Planning a Trip to London?
Make sure to check out my ultimate London travel guide, which includes everything you need to know before you visit!
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Quotes About London
1. In London, everyone is different, and that means anyone can fit in
– Paddington Bear (aka London icon), a fictional bear who travels from deepest, darkest Peru to Paddington Station and goes on all sorts of adventures in London
2. London is a bad habit one hates to lose
– William Sansom, a novelist, and travel and short story writer, who was born in London
3. A lot of cities, especially American ones like New York and Chicago, are laid out in straight lines. Like the circuits on computer chips, there are a lot of right angles in cities like this. But London is a glorious mess
– James Geary, an American author and former Europe editor of Time magazine
4. Oh, I love London Society! It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what Society should be
– Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish writer who moved to London after University and ran in fashionable social circles
5. A bad day in London is still better than a good day anywhere else
– Unknown
6. To walk alone in London is the greatest rest
– Virginia Woolf, writer and member of the famous Bloomsbury Group – a set of English writers, intellectuals and philosophers, who lived and worked together near Bloomsbury, London.
Some of Woolf’s greatest works include:
- To the Lighthouse
- Mrs Dalloway
- A Room of One’s Own
- The Waves
- Orlando
7. Being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you’re born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go through immigration waving any kind of passport, hop on the tube and by the time the train’s pulled into Piccadilly Circus they’ve become a Londoner
– Ben Aaronovitch, a British writer, born in London. Author of the Rivers of London series.
8. Go where we may, rest where we will,
Eternal London haunts us still.
– Thomas Moore, an Irish writer and poet
9. When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford
– Samuel Johnson, an English writer most well known for creating Johnson’s Dictionary
10. In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea
– John Osborne, an English playwright, screenwriter, and actor
London Quotes
11. The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts
– Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist, philosopher, and poet
12. New York has a great energy, but London is better
– Jaime Winstone, British actress born in Camden, North London
13. The streets of London have their map, but our passions are uncharted. What are you going to meet if you turn this corner?
– Virginia Woolf, writer and member of the famous Bloomsbury Group – a set of English writers, intellectuals and philosophers, who lived and worked together near Bloomsbury, London.
14. There’s nowhere else like London. Nothing at all, anywhere
– Vivienne Westwood, British fashion designer
15. I’ve been walking about London for the last 30 years, and I find something fresh in it every day
– Walter Besant, English novelist and historian
16. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is.”
– Bram Stoker, Irish author best known for his 1897 Gothic novel, Dracula
17. The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world
– Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish writer who moved to London after University and ran in fashionable social circles
18. 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
– King George VI
19. One thing about London is that when you step out into the night, it swallows you
– Sebastian Faulks, British novelist and journalist best known for novel Birdgsong
20. It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent
– Henry James, famous novelist known for his novels concerning the relationships between Americans, English people, and Europeans
More London Quotes
21. I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained
– Arthur Conan Doyle, British writer best known for the Sherlock Holmes series, which follows a detective in London
22. I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity
– Charlotte Bronte, famous English novelist and eldest of the three Bronte sisters who survived into adulthood
23. I hastened,…, back to London,…; for here you have the advantage of solitude without its disadvantage, since you may be alone and in company at the same time; and while you walk or sit unobserved, noise, hurry, and a constant succession of objects entertain the mind
– Henry Fielding, English novelist and dramatist
24. There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear – the city of London and the South Seas
– Herman Melville, American novelist and poet, best known for his novel Moby Dick
25. One of the things I most liked about the city – apart from all its obvious attractions – the theatre, the galleries, the exhilarating walks by the river – was that so few people ever asked you personal questions
– Julia Gregson, contemporary British novelist and short story writer
26. London goes beyond any boundary or convention. It contains every wish or word ever spoken, every action or gesture ever made, every harsh or noble statement ever expressed. It is illimitable. It is Infinite London
– Peter Ackroyd, English biographer and a critic with a particular interest in the culture and history of London
27. Tea at the Ritz is the last delicious morsel of Edwardian London. The light is kind, the cakes are frivolous and the tempo is calm, confident and leisurely
– Helen Simpson, English novelist and short story writer
28. London is a world by itself. We daily discover in it more new countries, and surprising singularities, than in all the universe besides
– David Bailey, English fashion and portrait photographer
29. Stopping abruptly in central London is a heinous crime, and immediately gives the people around you permission to kick you
– Beth O’Leary, contemporary romance author
30. This melancholy London — I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually
– William Butler Yeats, Irish poet and writer
More Quotes About London
31. London is a friend whom I can leave knowing without doubt that she will be the same to me when I return, to-morrow or forty years hence, and that, if I do not return, she will sing the same song to inheritors of my happy lot in future generations
– Stella Benson, novelist, poet, and travel writer
32. How can you be bored? You live in London! You’re breathing the same air as the Queen and Vivienne Westwood!
– Audrey Niffenegger, American author
33. The lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside
– Arthur Conan Doye, British writer best known for the Sherlock Holmes series, which follows a detective in London
34. Paris is a woman but London is an independent man puffing his pipe in a pub
– Jack Kerouac, an American novelist and pioneer of the Beat Generation
35. London is my most compelling lover; I am hooked on it, for all its mistreatment. Expensive and demanding and, if you know where to look, beautiful
– Alice Vincent, British author
36. The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane
– Stephen Fry, English actor, comedian, and writer
37. When exploring London, you will come across lots of excitement by chance, so try to take everything in rather than just rushing around to all of the major tourist haunts
– Richard Branson, English businessman best known for founding Virgin
38. In people’s eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment in June
– Virginia Woolf, writer and member of the famous Bloomsbury Group – a set of English writers, intellectuals and philosophers, who lived and worked together near Bloomsbury, London.
39. London is a roost for every bird
– Benjamin Disraeli, a British politician of the Conservative Party who twice served as Prime Minister of the UK
40. I travel continuously, and I see many cities, but there is nowhere like London
– Norma Foster, actress born in East London
Final Quotes About London
41. If you’re curious, London’s an amazing place
– David Bailey, English fashion and portrait photographer
42. The vibe of London as a city is captivating. It’s both fast-paced and extremely rushed but still has the calmness that would attract any big-city person
– Ali Fazal, Indian actor and model
43. Nothing is certain in London but expense
– William Shenstone, English poet
44. I have often amused myself with thinking how different a place London is to different people
– James Boswell
45. As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of old, inwardly its poetry is much deeper
– Goldwin Smith
Best Books About London
Non-Fiction Books Set in London
