James Boswell Short Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

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Then, all censure of a man's self is oblique praise.

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

James Boswell
I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically.

James Boswell
My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.

James Boswell
He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.

James Boswell
Influence must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it should.

James Boswell
We had some port, and drank damnation to the play and eternal remorse to the author.

James Boswell
Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.

James Boswell
When a man is familiar with many people he must expect many disagreeable familiarizations.

James Boswell
The pleasure of gratifying whim is very great. It is known only by those who are whimsical.

James Boswell
Such groundless fears will arise in the mind, before it has resumed its vigour after sleep!

James Boswell
Friendship, the wine of life, should, like a well stocked cellar, be thus continually renewed.

James Boswell
I think there is a blossom about me of something more distinguished than the generality of mankind.

James Boswell
I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of this fragrant leaf than did Johnson.

James Boswell
What can he mean by coming among us? He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.

James Boswell
A page of my Journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion.

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
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
Johnson is dead. Let us go to the next best — there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson.

James Boswell
In every place, where there is any thing worthy of observation, there should be a short printed directory for strangers.

James Boswell
Boswell is pleasant and gay,
For frolic by nature designed;
He heedlessly rattles away
When company is to his mind.

James Boswell
I, who have no sisters or brothers, look with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to friends.

James Boswell
I saw what seemed a mere shrimp mount upon the table, but, as I listened, he grew and grew until the shrimp became a whale.

James Boswell
I have discovered that we may be in some degree whatever character we choose. Besides, practice forms a man to anything....

James Boswell
I have never yet exerted ambition in rising in the state. But sure I am, no man has made his way better to the best company.

James Boswell
Dr Johnson said the inscription should have been in Latin, as every thing intended to be universal and permanent, should be.

James Boswell
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.

James Boswell
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
If venereal delight and the power of propagating the species were permitted only to the virtuous, it would make the world very good.

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