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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
Many
Never
Men
Scorn
Bear
Bears
Saws
Seen

More quotes by James Boswell

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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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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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My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.
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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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What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!
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In every picture there should be shade as well as light.
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 fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically.
James Boswell
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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.
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Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.
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Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.
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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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If a man is prodigal, he cannot be truly generous.
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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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We must take our friends as they are.
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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.
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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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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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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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