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What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!

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
Insignificant
Leading
Life

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.
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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.
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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.
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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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I find I journalize too tediously. Let me try to abbreviate.
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The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.
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That favorite subject, Myself.
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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.
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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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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.
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In every picture there should be shade as well as light.
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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.
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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.
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My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.
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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.
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Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.
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