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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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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
Good
Wit
Pleasantry
Think
Innocence
Excellencies
Thinking
Innocent
Pleasantries
Species
Pun
Conversation
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Among
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Lively
May
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More quotes by James Boswell
I find I journalize too tediously. Let me try to abbreviate.
James Boswell
My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.
James Boswell
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
Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.
James Boswell
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
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
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
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
That favorite subject, Myself.
James Boswell
But what can a man see of a library being one day in it?
James Boswell
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
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
Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.
James Boswell
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
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
The scent of Sloth tempts a smug man.
James Boswell
[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.
James Boswell
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
Dr. Johnson ... sometimes employed himself in chymistry, sometimes in watering and pruning a vine, and sometimes in small experiments, at which those who may smile, should recollect that there are moments which admit of being soothed only by trifles.
James Boswell
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
