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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
Impregnated
Ether
Strongly
Mind

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We must take our friends as they are.
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Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.
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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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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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Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.
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I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically.
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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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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.
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The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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In every picture there should be shade as well as light.
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That favorite subject, Myself.
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Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.
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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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