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Who really said it

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life

Spoken by Samuel Johnson 1709–1784 · English writer, critic & lexicographer
Verified Free to reuse

A genuine Johnson line — but a spoken one. He said it to James Boswell after breakfast on 20 September 1777, and Boswell recorded it in “The Life of Samuel Johnson” (1791). The famous fragment is the opening of a longer sentence: “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life” Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), conversation of 20 September 1777

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Provenance

The source

Work
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
Author of record
James Boswell (first published 1791)
Occasion
Conversation, 20 September 1777
Volume
Vol. III (entry for 20 Sept 1777)

“Why, Sir, 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.”

Boswell had confessed he feared his love of London would fade if he lived there year-round instead of visiting; this was Johnson’s reply.

Boswell’s Life of Johnson (Project Gutenberg)

How we know

  • Boswell records the line in The Life of Samuel Johnson ↗, where the full sentence continues “for there is in London all that life can afford.” The samueljohnson.com concordance dates the conversation to 20 September 1777.
  • Wikiquote lists it in its sourced section ↗, citing Boswell’s Life, Vol. III.
  • The samueljohnson.com concordance ↗ gives the same wording and the 1777 date.
Public domain

Boswell’s “The Life of Samuel Johnson” was first published in 1791 and Johnson’s spoken words were recorded then; both are long in the public domain in the United States.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

The attribution to Johnson is correct — a rare win for a “magnet” name. The distortions here are about form, not authorship.

“Tired of London…” on its own truncated

The popular version stops at “tired of life” and drops Johnson’s reason: “for there is in London all that life can afford,” per Boswell ↗.

“Johnson wrote…” mis-framed

It is often presented as a Johnson epigram or essay line. It was a spoken reply in conversation, preserved only because Boswell wrote it down ↗ years later.

Johnson did say it — to Boswell on 20 September 1777 — and the real sentence runs on: “for there is in London all that life can afford ↗.”

Context

Why it mattered

The remark came out of a real worry of Boswell’s. A Scot who lived in Edinburgh and only visited the capital, he feared that settling in London permanently would dull the thrill he felt on his periodic trips. Johnson’s answer was meant to reassure him that the city’s riches were inexhaustible.

Two and a half centuries later the line has become London’s unofficial motto — printed on mugs, tea towels and Tube posters — usually shorn of the clause that explains why Johnson believed it.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Happiness Time

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

The Life of Samuel Johnson (abridged edition)gutenberg.org

Charles Grosvenor Osgood’s abridged edition of Boswell’s biography; it carries the London line, though this condensed text drops Boswell’s dated diary structure.
Samuel Johnson — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced section citing the quote to Boswell’s Life, Vol. III.
“Tired of London” concordancesamueljohnson.com

Quote page giving the exact wording, context and 1777 date.
Samuel Johnson — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the author, including his life in London and his relationship with Boswell.
Life of Johnson at the Internet Archivearchive.org

Scanned Vol. III of Boswell’s Life for readers who want the original page image.

The author

About Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

1709–1784 · English writer, critic & lexicographer

Samuel Johnson — often “Dr Johnson” — was one of the most quoted figures in the English language, author of the landmark 1755 Dictionary of the English Language, poems, essays and the Lives of the Poets. Much of what we know of his talk survives because his friend James Boswell recorded their conversations, publishing them in the 1791 Life of Samuel Johnson. This London line is one of those spoken, not written, remarks.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (London: Charles Dilly, 1791), conversation of 20 September 1777. Public domain.

MLA (9th ed.)

Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Charles Dilly, 1791.

APA (7th ed.)

Boswell, J. (1791). The life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Charles Dilly.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/when-a-man-is-tired-of-london-he-is-tired-of-life

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