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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
Curious
Endued
Easily
Faculties
Creatures
Disturbed
Order
Creature
Men
Faculty
Psychological
Powers
Variety

More quotes by 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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I find I journalize too tediously. Let me try to abbreviate.
James Boswell
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If a man who is born to a fortune cannot make himself easier and freer than those who are not, he gains nothing.
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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Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.
James Boswell
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What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!
James Boswell
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He had no settled plan of life, nor looked forward at all, but merely lived from day to day. Yet he read a great deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of study, as chance threw books in his way, and inclination directed him through them.
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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Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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After I went to bed I had a curious fancy as to dreams. In sleep the doors of the mind are shut, and thoughts come jumping in at the windows. They tumble headlong, and therefore are so disorderly and strange. Sometimes they are stout and light on their feet, and then they are rational dreams.
James Boswell
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Dr Johnson said, the inscription should have been in Latin, as every thing intended to be universal and permanent, should be.
James Boswell
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Those who would extirpate evil from the world know little of human nature. As well might punch be palatable without souring as existence agreeable without care.
James Boswell
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A Sceptick therefore, who because he finds that Truths are not universally received, doubts of their existence, is just as foolish as a man who should try large shoes upon little feet, and little shoes upon large feet, and finding that they did not fit.
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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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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I am so fond of tea that I could write a whole dissertation on its virtues. It comforts and enlivens without the risks attendant on spirituous liquors. Gentle herb! Let the florid grape yield to thee. Thy soft influence is a more safe inspirer of social joy.
James Boswell
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As all who come into the country must obey the King, so all who come into an university must be of the Church.
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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That favorite subject, Myself.
James Boswell