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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.
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
Bear
Bears
Saws
Seen
Many
Never
Men
Scorn
More quotes by 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
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
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
I find I journalize too tediously. Let me try to abbreviate.
James Boswell
In an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot on the ground.
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
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
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
If a man is prodigal, he cannot be truly generous.
James Boswell
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
Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.
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
Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.
James Boswell
What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!
James Boswell
That favorite subject, Myself.
James Boswell
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
Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.
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
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
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