James Boswell
Title: 9th Laird of Auchinleck
Birthdate: October 29, 1740
Birthplace: Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Date of Death: May 19, 1795
Occupation: Author, Biographer, Journalist, and Lawyer
Profile: Best known for
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791).
Website: http://www.jamesboswell.info/
Number of Quotes: 52
A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.
A page of my journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion.
Journal (1775)
But he is a man of good principles; and there are few men of good principles who are not fit for any thing.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791) on Sir Joshua Reynolds.
By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.
Letter (1762)
Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791)
Come to me not in the passing, but abide with me.
Journal
Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson's words.
Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791)
Except when he talked of law, Sir William Forbes was a very agreeable man.
Journal
France is the paradise of women, the purgatory of men, and the hell of horses.
Attributed in journal context.
Great abilities are not requisite for an historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
Great lords and ladies are fit for nothing; they neither know anything, nor do they want to know anything.
Journal
He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
How easily a man may become rich in London, if he will be regular in his business.
Journal
I confess I have a great deal of ambition, but it is ambition to be esteemed by those who know me.
I have found from experience that to keep your secret is wiser than to trust another with it.
I love to talk of nothing more than of myself.
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.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791)
I will not be deterred by a little ridicule from the enjoyment of my pleasure.
If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson on a philosopher.
Johnson observed, that he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791)
Let us now try to be happy with a book.
Journal
Life has, indeed, many ills, but the mind that views every object in its most cheering aspect, and every
doubtful dispensation as replete with latent good, bears within itself a powerful and perpetual source of happiness.
Letter
London is the place to be in.
Journal
Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most
ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
Journal
My heart warmed to my countrymen, and my Scotch blood boiled with indignation.
On hearing Scots criticized.
On the twenty-ninth of September, I consented to the dissolution of my unhappy marriage.
Journal (1776)
One great end of travelling is to see the seats of the great.
Journal
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
Pray remember that life is short, and that you are not to be long in the grave.
Letter to Temple (1763)
Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson's advice.
Round numbers are always false.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
Sir, a woman preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
Some men have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away.
The Hypochondriack, No. 57
Surely, in the whole of Shakespeare's
works, there is no play half so good as Macbeth.
Journal
That favourite subject, Myself.
The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
The notion of liberty amuses the people of England, and helps to keep off the taedium vitae.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.
The Hypochondriack, No. 65
The road to the western isles of Scotland is an education in scenery.
Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.
Truth is always truth, and reason is always reason; they are not subject to the fluctuations of human opinion.
Journal
Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.
Letter
We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a
drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
Wine gives great pleasure, and every pleasure is of itself a good.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791), reporting Johnson.
Without doubt, the first merit of a biographer is truth.
Journal
Last on Earth
