James Boswell Quotes

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

Writing a book I have found to be like building a house. A man forms a plan, and collects materials.

We must take our friends as they are.

I went to my father's at night. He spoke of poor John [Boswell's brother] with disgust. I was shocked and said, "He's your son, and God made him." He answered very harshly, "If my sons are idiots, can I help it?

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.

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

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

I am now to offer some thoughts upon that sameness or familiarity which we frequently find between passages in different authors without quotation. This may be one of three things either what is called Plagiarism, or Imitation, or Coincidence.

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

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.

As all who come into the country must obey the King, so all who come into an university must be of the Church.

We often observe in lawyers, who as Quicquid agunt homines is the matter of law suits, are sometimes obliged to pick up a temporary knowledge of an art or science, of which they understood nothing till their brief was delivered, and appear to be much masters of it.

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

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise.

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.

But the question is, whether the animals who endure such sufferings of various kinds for the service and entertainment of man, would accept existence upon the terms on which they have it.

No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port for men: but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy. In the first place brandy will do soonest for a man what drinking can do for him.

My definition of Man is, a Cooking Animal. The beasts have memory, judgement, and all the faculties and passions of our mind, in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook....Man alone can dress a good dish; and every man whatever is more or less a cook, in seasoning what he himself eats.

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

Nay, Sir, it was not the WINE that made your head ache, but the SENSE that I put into it' 'What, Sir! will sense make the head ache?' 'Yes, Sir, (with a smile,) when it is not used to it.

But what can a man see of a library being one day in it?

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.

One must be strict even in little things.

I am, I flatter myself, completely a citizen of the world. In my travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France, I never felt myself from home.

There is indeed a strange prejudice against Quotation.

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.

If a man who is born to a fortune cannot make himself easier and freer than those who are not, he gains nothing.

In an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot on the ground.

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.

I find I journalize too tediously. Let me try to abbreviate.

The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.

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.

I am sensible that my keenness of temper, and a vanity to be distinguished for the day, make me too often splash in life.... I amresolved to restrain myself and attend more to decorum.

O charitable philosopher, I beg you to help me. My mind is weak but my soul is strong. Kindle that soul, and the sacred fire shall never be extinguished.

I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of that fragrant leaf than Johnson.

Writing a book I have found to be like building a house. A man forms a plan, and collects materials. He thinks he has enough to raise a large and stately edifice; but after he has arranged, compacted and polished, his work turns out to be a very small performance. The authour however like the builder, knows how much labour his work has cost him; and therefore estimates it at a higher rate than other people think it deserves

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

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.

I have seen many a bear led by a man: but I never before saw a man led by a bear.

That favorite subject, Myself.

What a curious creature is man; with what a variety of powers and faculties is he endued; yet how easily is he disturbed and put out of order.

To abolish a status, which in all ages God has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects; but it would be extreme cruelty to the African Savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life; especially now when their passage to the West-Indies and their treatment there is humanely regulated.

My readers, who may at first be apt to consider Quotation as downright pedantry, will be surprised when I assure them, that next to the simple imitation of sounds and gestures, Quotation is the most natural and most frequent habitude of human nature. For, Quotation must not be confined to passages adduced out of authors. He who cites the opinion, or remark, or saying of another, whether it has been written or spoken, is certainly one who quotes; and this we shall find to be universally practiced.

Buffon, who, with all his theoretical ingenuity and extraordinary eloquence, I suspect had little actual information in the science on which he wrote so admirably For instance, he tells us that the cow sheds her horns every two years; a most palpable error. ... It is wonderful that Buffon who lived so much in the country at his noble seat should have fallen into such a blunder I suppose he has confounded the cow with the deer.

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.

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.

Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.

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.