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In every picture there should be shade as well as light.

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
Shade
Picture
Light
Wells
Well
Every

More quotes by James Boswell

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We must take our friends as they are.
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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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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If a man is prodigal, he cannot be truly generous.
James Boswell
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Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.
James Boswell
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The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.
James Boswell
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Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.
James Boswell
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The scent of Sloth tempts a smug man.
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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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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But what can a man see of a library being one day in it?
James Boswell
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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.
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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Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about 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 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
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What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!
James Boswell
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My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.
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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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