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Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.

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
Ignorance
Mother
Many
Infidels
Infidel
Maintained
Devotion
Worship

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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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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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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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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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We must take our friends as they are.
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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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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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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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Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.
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My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.
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But what can a man see of a library being one day in it?
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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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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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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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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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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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What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!
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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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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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