London Quotes - Page 14

• My own first love was biology. I spent a great part of my adolescence in the Natural History museum in London (and I still go to the Botanic Garden almost every day, and to the Zoo every Monday). The sense of diversity of the wonder of innumerable forms of life has always thrilled me beyond anything else.

  Oliver Sacks

  Monday, Zoos, First Love

  "Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History". Book by Stephen Jay Gould, 1995.

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• And London shops on Christmas Eve Are strung with silver bells and flowers As hurrying clerks the City leave To pigeon-haunted classic towers, And marbled clouds go scudding by The many-steepled London sky

  John Betjeman

  Flower, Clouds, Silver Bells

  John Betjeman (2005). “Faith and Doubt of John Betjeman: An Anthology of Betjeman's Religious Verse”, p.82, A&C Black

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• The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth -- he could at the same time and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprise of any quarter of the world -- he could secure forthwith, if he wished, cheap and comfortable means of transit to any country or climate without passport or other formality.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Country, Morning, Peace

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• London is like the grave in one respect -- any man can make himself at home there; and whenever a man finds himself homeless elsewhere, he had better either die or go to London.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Home, Men, Graves

  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.2497, e-artnow

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• Never was there a dingier, uglier, less picturesque city than London ... it is really wonderful that so much brick and stone, for centuries together, should have been built up with so poor a result.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Should Have, Cities, Together

  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.817, e-artnow

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• 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

  Cheerful, Speak, Easy

  Henry James, F. O. Matthiessen, Kenneth B. Murdock (1981). “The Notebooks of Henry James”, p.27, University of Chicago Press

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• London is like the tropical bush -- if you don't exercise constant care the jungle, in the shape of the slums, will break in.

  John Buchan

  Exercise, Care, Shapes

  John Buchan (2016). “The Complete Works of John Buchan (Unabridged): Thriller Classics, Spy Novels, Supernatural Tales, Short Stories, Poetry, Historical Works, The Great War Writings, Essays, Biographies & Memoirs – All in One Volume”, p.663, e-artnow

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• I once played the chief part in a rather exciting business without ever once budging from London . And the joke of it was that the man who went out to look for adventure only saw a bit of the game, and I who sat in my chambers saw it all and pulled the strings. 'They also serve who only stand and wait,' you know.

  John Buchan

  Adventure, Men, Games

  John Buchan (2016). “The Complete Works of John Buchan (Unabridged): Thriller Classics, Spy Novels, Supernatural Tales, Short Stories, Poetry, Historical Works, The Great War Writings, Essays, Biographies & Memoirs – All in One Volume”, p.1649, e-artnow

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• London is like a dream come true. As I ramble through it I am haunted by the curious feeling of something half-forgotten, but still dimly remembered, like a reminiscence of some previous state of existence. It is at once familiar and strange.

  Joseph Fort Newton

  Dream, Feelings, Half

  Joseph Fort Newton (1922). “Preaching in London: A Diary of Anglo-American Friendship”

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• London, with its monotonous and melancholy houses, seems like an inharmonious patchwork, as if pieced together without design. Yet it is lovable in its sprawling confusion.

  Joseph Fort Newton

  Confusion, House, Design

  Joseph Fort Newton (1922). “Preaching in London: A Diary of Anglo-American Friendship”

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• We cannot know what John of Leyden felt Under the Bishop 's tongs - we can only Walk in temperate London, our educated city, Wishing to cry as freely as they did who died In the Age of Faith. We have our loneliness And our regret with which to build an eschatology.

  Peter Porter

  Regret, Loneliness, Cities

  Peter Porter (1989). “A Porter Selected: Poems, 1959-1989”, Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press

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• I always wanted to see what America was like. I had that curiosity in my 20s when I was working in the theatre here [ in London]... there was the mystery of LA and I wondered what happened over there. I wanted to go and check it out and I'm pleased that I have.

  Tom Hiddleston

  America, Curiosity, Theatre

  "Marvel Avengers Assemble - Tom Hiddleston interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• Whenever I come back to London, which is home, I get that cosy, comfortable feeling of being home, as well as the sophistication of this city.

  Tom Hiddleston

  Home, Cities, Feelings

  "Marvel Avengers Assemble - Tom Hiddleston interview". Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• if you want to be a little bit solitary and work very hard, you can do it more easily in New York than in a town like Paris or London. Because you depend so much for human relationships here on the phone. If you don't answer your phone, you are quite a lonely couple.

  Arman

  Lonely, New York, Couple

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• After one month with a saxophone shoved in my mouth, my military combatant's enthusiasm disappeared completely. Instead of flying choppers behind enemy lines, I started to fantasise about living in New York, London or Paris.

  Gilad Atzmon

  New York, Military, Creativity

  Gilad Atzmon (2011). “The Wandering Who?: A Study of Jewish Identity Politics”, p.3, John Hunt Publishing

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• In the field of Artificial Intelligence there is no more iconic and controversial milestone than the Turing Test, when a computer convinces a sufficient number of interrogators into believing that it is not a machine but rather is a human. It is fitting that such an important landmark has been reached at the Royal Society in London, the home of British Science and the scene of many great advances in human understanding over the centuries. This milestone will go down in history as one of the most exciting.

  Kevin Warwick

  Believe, Home, Numbers

  "Computer Simulating 13-year-old Boy Becomes First to Pass Turing Test". www.reading.ac.uk. June 09, 2014.

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• By the time I was 13, I was the only one in London, Ontario, who knew how to play rock n' roll.

  Robbie Robertson

  Rocks, Play, Ontario

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• Women made up 44% of Olympic competitors at London 2012 - the greatest show of gender equality in Olympic history. By comparison, in the 1908 Games men outnumbered women 53 to 1.

  Donna de Varona

  Men, Games, Gender

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• White as a winding sheet,
  Masks blowing down the street:
  Moscow, Paris London, Vienna - all are undone.
  The drums of death are mumbling, rumbling, and tumbling,
  Mumbling, rumbling, and tumbling,
  The world's floors are quaking, crumbling and breaking.

  Edith Sitwell

  Paris, White, Vienna

  "Façades". Book by Edith Sitwell, 1922.

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• Proportion ... You can't help thinking about it in these London streets, where it doesn't exist ... It's like listening to a symphony of cats to walk along them. Senseless discords and a horrible disorder all the way ... We need no barbarians from outside; they're on the premises, all the time.

  Aldous Huxley

  Cat, Thinking, Symphony

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• I promise myself great pleasure from my visit to England. You know I am to stay with Dickens while in London; and beside his own very agreeable society, I shall enjoy that of the most noted literary men of the day, which will be a great gratification to me.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Men, Promise, England

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1967). “The Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Volume I-II: 1814-1843”, p.468, Harvard University Press

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• To hold the same views at forty as we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for a score of years, and take rank, not as a prophet, but as an unteachable brat, well birched and none the wiser. It is as if a ship captain should sail to India from the Port of London; and having brought a chart of the Thames on deck at his first setting out, should obstinately use no other for the whole voyage.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Years, Views, Voyages

  Robert Louis Stevenson (1999). “The Lantern-Bearers and Other Essays”, p.63, Cooper Square Press

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• How long would it take a school-inspector of average activity to tumble head over heels from London toYork?

  Charles Kingsley

  School, Average, Long

  1863 The Water Babies, ch.8.

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• In a museum in London there is an exhibit called "The Value of Man": a long coffinlike box with lots of compartments where they've put starch phosphorus flour bottles of water and alcohol and big pieces of gelatin. I am a man like that.

  Stephane Mallarme

  Men, Museums, Water

  Letter, May 17, 1867.

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• People who talk of the spread of music in England and the increasing love of it, rarely seem to know where the growth of the art is really strong and properly fostered: some day the press will awake to the fact, already known abroad and to some few of us in England, that the living centre of music in Great Britain is not London, but somewhere further North.

  Edward Elgar

  Art, Strong, People

  Letter to Canon Gorton, organizer of the Morecambe Music Festival, published in "The Musical Times", July 1903.

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