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My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.

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
Ether
Strongly
Mind
Impregnated

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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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Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.
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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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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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That favorite subject, Myself.
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The scent of Sloth tempts a smug man.
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When a man is familiar with many people he must expect many disagreeable familiarizations.
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I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically.
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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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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.
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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.
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The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.
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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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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 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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What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!
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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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In every picture there should be shade as well as light.
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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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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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