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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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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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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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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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The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.
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In every picture there should be shade as well as light.
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If a man is prodigal, he cannot be truly generous.
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When a man is familiar with many people he must expect many disagreeable familiarizations.
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My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.
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I have seen many a bear led by a man: but I never before saw a man led by a bear.
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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.
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Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.
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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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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.
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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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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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Dr Johnson said, the inscription should have been in Latin, as every thing intended to be universal and permanent, should be.
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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 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?
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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.
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That favorite subject, Myself.
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