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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
Light
Wells
Well
Every
Shade
Picture

More quotes by 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
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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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The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.
James Boswell
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I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically.
James Boswell
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I find I journalize too tediously. Let me try to abbreviate.
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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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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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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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.
James Boswell
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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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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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A Sceptick therefore, who because he finds that Truths are not universally received, doubts of their existence, is just as foolish as a man who should try large shoes upon little feet, and little shoes upon large feet, and finding that they did not fit.
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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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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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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Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.
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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My wife, who does not like journalizing, said it was leaving myself embowelled to posterity--a good strong figure. But I think itis rather leaving myself embalmed. It is certainly preserving myself.
James Boswell
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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.
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