I had been in London innumerable times, and yet that day I had never noticed one of the worst things about London – the fact that it costs money even to sit down.

George Orwell (1903-1950)

I’ve been walking about London for the last thirty years, and I find something fresh in it every day.

Walter Besant (1836-1901), on his deathbed, 9th June 1901

The City of London, whose resident population hardly equals that of Dover, but whose precincts over a million persons enter daily, Sunday excepted, on business bent.

A. H. Beavan, Imperial London

Much as I hate to agree with that tedious old git Samuel Johnson . . . I can’t dispute it. After seven years of living in the country in a sort of place where a dead cow draws a crowd, London can seem a bit dazzling.

Bill Bryson (b. 1951)

Fragmentarily the City is nothing, but collectively it is gigantic . . .

Charlotte Riddell (1832-1906), City and Suburb