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[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.

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
Character
Autobiography
Men
Journal
Lady
Mirror
Dress
Dresses
Mirrors
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More quotes by James Boswell

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Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.
James Boswell
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My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.
James Boswell
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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?
James Boswell
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That favorite subject, Myself.
James Boswell
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But what can a man see of a library being one day in it?
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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When a man is familiar with many people he must expect many disagreeable familiarizations.
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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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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As all who come into the country must obey the King, so all who come into an university must be of the Church.
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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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.
James Boswell
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If a man is prodigal, he cannot be truly generous.
James Boswell