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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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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
Johnson
Intended
Latin
Permanent
Universal
Thing
Every
Inscription
Inscriptions

More quotes by James Boswell

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My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.
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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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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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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Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.
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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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 fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically.
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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In every picture there should be shade as well as light.
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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[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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Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.
James Boswell
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I argued that the chastity of women was of much more consequence than that of men, as the property and rights of families depend upon it.
James Boswell
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That favorite subject, Myself.
James Boswell
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I find I journalize too tediously. Let me try to abbreviate.
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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For my own part I think no innocent species of wit or pleasantry should be suppressed: and that a good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.
James Boswell
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The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.
James Boswell