-
I am, I flatter myself, completely a citizen of the world. In my travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France, I never felt myself from home.
James Boswell -
No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port for men: but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy. In the first place brandy will do soonest for a man what drinking can do for him.
James Boswell
-
A woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinter legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to see it done at all.
James Boswell -
Why should not the knowledge, the skill, the expertness, the assiduity, and the spirited hazards of trade and commerce, when crowned with success, be entitled to give those flattering distinctions by which mankind are so universally captivated? Such are the specious, but false arguments for a proposition which always will find numerous advocates, in a nation where men are every day starting up from obscurity to wealth. To refute them is needless. The general sense of mankind cries out, with irresistible force, "Un gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme.
James Boswell -
[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.
James Boswell -
The scent of Sloth tempts a smug man.
James Boswell -
Boswell is pleasant and gay, For frolic by nature designed; He heedlessly rattles away When company is to his mind.
James Boswell -
Such groundless fears will arise in the mind, before it has resumed its vigour after sleep!
James Boswell
-
My wife, who does not like journalizing, said it was leaving myself embowelled to posterity--a good strong figure. But I think itis rather leaving myself embalmed. It is certainly preserving myself.
James Boswell -
Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is, that while a man grows better pleased with himself, he may be growing less pleasing to others. Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has presented.
James Boswell -
I think there is a blossom about me of something more distinguished than the generality of mankind.
James Boswell -
That favorite subject, Myself.
James Boswell -
After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus."
James Boswell -
My lord and Dr Johnson disputed a little, whether the savage or the London shopkeeper had the best existence; his lordship, as usual, preferring the savage.
James Boswell
-
Boswell, when he speaks of his Life of Johnson, calls it my magnum opus, but it may more properly be called his opera, for it is truly a composition founded on a true story, in which there is a hero with a number of subordinate characters, and an alternate succession of recitative and airs of various tone and effect, all however in delightful animation.
James Boswell -
The connection between authors, printers, and booksellers must be kept up.
James Boswell -
What can he mean by coming among us? He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.
James Boswell -
Nay, Sir, it was not the WINE that made your head ache, but the SENSE that I put into it' 'What, Sir! will sense make the head ache?' 'Yes, Sir, (with a smile,) when it is not used to it.
James Boswell -
Then, all censure of a man's self is oblique praise.
James Boswell -
Dr. Johnson ... sometimes employed himself in chymistry, sometimes in watering and pruning a vine, and sometimes in small experiments, at which those who may smile, should recollect that there are moments which admit of being soothed only by trifles.
James Boswell
-
My curiosity to see the melancholy spectacle of the executions was so strong that I could not resist it, although I was sensible that I would suffer much from it.... I got upon a scaffold near the fatal tree so that I could clearly see all the dismal scene.... I was most terribly shocked, and thrown into a very deep melancholy.
James Boswell -
Television goes into people's homes, and it reaches them on a very personal level. When you're sitting in your home after a day's work, and you've chosen to watch a show like 'ER,' you're very vulnerable. ... It's a very provocative and engaging and deeply thoughtful show.
James Boswell -
O charitable philosopher, I beg you to help me. My mind is weak but my soul is strong. Kindle that soul, and the sacred fire shall never be extinguished.
James Boswell -
My father had declared a predilection for heirs general, that is, males and females indiscriminately.... I, on the other hand, had a zealous partiality for heirs male, however remote.
James Boswell