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What a curious creature is man with what a variety of powers and faculties is he endued yet how easily is he disturbed and put out of order.

James Boswell

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James Boswell
Age: 54 †
Born: 1740
Born: October 18
Died: 1795
Died: May 19
Biographer
Diarist
Lawyer
Writer
Edinburgh
Scotland
James Boswell I
James
I Boswell
Easily
Faculties
Creatures
Disturbed
Order
Creature
Men
Faculty
Psychological
Powers
Variety
Curious
Endued

More quotes by James Boswell

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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.
James Boswell
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In every picture there should be shade as well as light.
James Boswell
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When a man is familiar with many people he must expect many disagreeable familiarizations.
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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I am sensible that my keenness of temper, and a vanity to be distinguished for the day, make me too often splash in life.... I amresolved to restrain myself and attend more to decorum.
James Boswell
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Have a sense of piety ever on your mind, and be ever mindful that this is subject to no change, but will last you as long as life and support you in death. Elevate your soul by prayer and by contemplation without mystical enthusiasm.
James Boswell
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[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.
James Boswell
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I find I journalize too tediously. Let me try to abbreviate.
James Boswell
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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
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When we know exactly all a man's views and how he comes to speak and act so and so, we lose any respect for him, though we may love and admire him.
James Boswell
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I went to my father's at night. He spoke of poor John [Boswell's brother] with disgust. I was shocked and said, He's your son, and God made him. He answered very harshly, If my sons are idiots, can I help it?
James Boswell
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Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.
James Boswell
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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
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If a man is prodigal, he cannot be truly generous.
James Boswell
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But what can a man see of a library being one day in it?
James Boswell
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My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.
James Boswell
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It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it but all belief is for it.
James Boswell
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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
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The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.
James Boswell
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Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.
James Boswell