James Boswell Quotes
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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.
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Such groundless fears will arise in the mind, before it has resumed its vigour after sleep!
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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.
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[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.
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In comparing these two writers, he [Samuel Johnson] used this expression: "that there was as great a difference between them as between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who could tell the hour by looking on the dial-plate." This was a short and a figurative statement of his distinction between drawing characters of nature and characters only of manners, but I cannot help being of opinion, that the neat watches of Fielding are as well constructed as the large clocks of Richardson, and that his dial plates are brighter.
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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."
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We often observe in lawyers, who as Quicquid agunt homines is the matter of law suits, are sometimes obliged to pick up a temporary knowledge of an art or science, of which they understood nothing till their brief was delivered, and appear to be much masters of it.
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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.
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I think there is a blossom about me of something more distinguished than the generality of mankind.
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In an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot on the ground.
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It's a wonderful thing as time goes by, to be with someone who looks into your face when you've gotten old and still sees what you think you look like.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The connection between authors, printers, and booksellers must be kept up.
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The scent of Sloth tempts a smug man.
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My definition of Man is, a Cooking Animal. The beasts have memory, judgement, and all the faculties and passions of our mind, in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook....Man alone can dress a good dish; and every man whatever is more or less a cook, in seasoning what he himself eats.
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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.
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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.
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Boswell is pleasant and gay, For frolic by nature designed; He heedlessly rattles away When company is to his mind.
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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.
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What can he mean by coming among us? He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.
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The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.
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People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids? A man cannot know himself better than by attending to the feelings of his heart and to his external actions, from which he may with tolerable certainty judge "what manner of person he is." I have therefore determined to keep a daily journal.