Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perha... by James Boswell

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. by James Boswell

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

new-friends he-man men

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.

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

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

self praise men

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

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

shade light should

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?

brother father son

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.

vanity ambition manners

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is, that while a man grows better pleased with himself, he may be growing less pleasing to others. Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has presented.

wine giving men

Friendship, "the wine of life," should, like a well-stocked cella... by James Boswell

Friendship, "the wine of life," should, like a well-stocked cellar, be continually renewed.

wine should friendship

Friendship, "the wine of life," should, like a well-stocked cellar, be continually renewed; and it is consolatory to think, that although we can seldom add what will equal the generous first growths of our youth, yet friendship becomes insensibly old in much less time than is commonly imagined, and not many years are required to make it mellow and pleasant.

wine years thinking

I think there is a blossom about me of something more distinguish... by James Boswell

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

distinguished mankind thinking

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.

thoughtful dream sleep

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.

family rights men

Boswell, when he speaks of his Life of Johnson, calls it my magnum opus, but it may more properly be called his opera, for it is truly a composition founded on a true story, in which there is a hero with a number of subordinate characters, and an alternate succession of recitative and airs of various tone and effect, all however in delightful animation.

hero air character

I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of... by James Boswell

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

infusion johnson leafs

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.

innocence may thinking

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.

care evil world

[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.

mirrors character men

Addison writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy that a wise and accomplished companion is talking to them; so thathe insinuates his sentiments and taste into their minds by an imperceptible influence. Johnson writes like a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an academical chair. They attend with awe and admiration; and his precepts are impressed upon them by his commanding eloquence. Addison's style, like a light wine, pleases everybody from the first. Johnson's, like a liquor of more body, seems too strong at first, but, by degrees, is highly relished.

strong wise teacher

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.

west-indies men country

I have found you an argument I am not obliged to find you an unde... by James Boswell

I have found you an argument I am not obliged to find you an understanding.