London in Quotations

London in Quotations: Samuel Pepys

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We saw the fire grow; and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame . . . It made me weep to see it.

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), Diary 2nd September 1666

8 thoughts on “London in Quotations: Samuel Pepys”

  2. Samuel Pepys had a local connection with my home town, Huntingdon. His father lived in the nearby village of Brampton and like Cromwell, he attended the Grammar School in Huntingdon. The school is now the Cromwell Museum.
    The house where Pepys lived with his father is still standing, appropriately named as Pepys’ House.

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  3. There are many things wrong with London but there are a lot more things right with it. I have been fortunate enough to have been a UK & Republic of Ireland tour guide for 40 years. Of the 450 tours [For USA travellers.] I have conducted 443 of them have started & finished in London. London was not environmentally that great in the 1980s [It couldn’t quite decide whether to keep the remaining WW2 bombed out areas for posterity or build over them.] compared to how brilliant it is now but even then I still got excited & proud about getting back as we headed in over the Chiswick Flyover. I should have wept along with Sammy Pepys if I had stood beside him during the Great Fire. It is reassuring to know that ‘warm fuzzy’ feelings about London are not just contemporary but have existed throughout the almost 2000 years of London’s history.

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