James Boswell Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of James Boswell's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Lawyer James Boswell's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 80 quotes on this page collected since October 29, 1740! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
  • Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a considerable portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living.

    Art   Drinking   Reality  
    James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales”, p.178
  • 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, Mark Harris (1981). “The heart of Boswell: six journals in one volume”, McGraw-Hill Companies
  • The connection between authors, printers, and booksellers must be kept up.

    James Boswell (1956). “London Journal, 1762-1763, as First Published in 1950 from the Original Manuscript”
  • 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   Character   Air  
    James Boswell, Marlies K. Danziger (1989). “Boswell, the great biographer, 1789-1795”, McGraw-Hill Companies
  • I think there is a blossom about me of something more distinguished than the generality of mankind.

    'Boswell's London Journal' (ed. F. A. Pottle, 1950) 20 January 1763
  • 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.

    Writing   Yield   Joy  
    James Boswell (1956). “London Journal, 1762-1763, as First Published in 1950 from the Original Manuscript”
  • 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.

    Art   Knowledge   Science  
    James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Edmond Malone (1824). “The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished”, p.309
  • There is indeed a strange prejudice against Quotation.

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

    Mind  
    James Boswell (1846). “The Life of Samuel Johnson: Including a Journal of His Tour to the Hebrides”, p.198
  • The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.

  • Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.

  • 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.

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

    Character   Men   Mirrors  
    James Boswell, John Wilson Crocker (1853). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Their Tour to the Hebrides”, p.572
  • 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.

    James Boswell, Mark Harris (1981). “The heart of Boswell: six journals in one volume”, McGraw-Hill Companies
  • My father had declared a predilection for heirs general, that is, males and females indiscriminately.... I, on the other hand, had a zealous partiality for heirs male, however remote.

    Father   Hands   Males  
    James Boswell (1851). “The life of Samuel Johnson. [Followed by] The journal of a tour to the Hebrides”, p.265
  • A page of my journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion.

    Cake   Soup   May  
    'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides' (ed. F. A. Pottle, 1936) 13 September 1773
  • 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   Thinking   Years  
    James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Edmond Malone (1824). “The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished”, p.261
  • That favorite subject, Myself.

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

    Country   Kings   Church  
    James Boswell, John Wilson Croker (1831). “The life of Samuel Johnson ... including A journal of a tour to the Hebrides. With additions and notes, by J.W. Croker”, p.300
  • Influence must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it should.

    James Boswell (1874). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.233
  • 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.

    Strong   Fire   Soul  
    James Boswell, John Wain (1994). “The Journals of James Boswell, 1762-1795”, p.6, Yale University Press
  • 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.

    Science   Drs   Vines  
    James Boswell (2008). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.125, ReadHowYouWant.com
  • 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  
  • 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.

    Death   Strong   Tree  
  • 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.

    James Boswell (1863). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Comprehending an Account of His Studies and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order; a Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition Never Before Published: the Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great-Britain, for Near Half a Century During which He Flourished”, p.54
  • In an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot on the ground.

    Tree   Fruit   Enough  
    James Boswell (1807). “The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: comprehending an account of his studies and numerous works, in chronological order; a series of his epistolatory correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published: the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great-Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished”, p.309
  • 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.

    James Boswell (1874). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.239
  • I make it a kind of pious rule to go to every funeral to which I am invited, both as I wish to pay a proper respect to the dead, unless their characters have been bad, and as I would wish to have the funeral of my own near relations or of myself well attended.

    James Boswell (2001). “Boswell's Edinburgh Journals 1767-1786”, Mercat Press Books
  • But what can a man see of a library being one day in it?

    Men   One Day   Library  
    James Boswell, Marlies K. Danziger (2008). “James Boswell: the journal of his German and Swiss travels, 1764”, Yale Univ Pr
  • People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids? A man cannot know himself better than by attending to the feelings of his heart and to his external actions, from which he may with tolerable certainty judge "what manner of person he is." I have therefore determined to keep a daily journal.

    Heart   Kids   Men  
Page 1 of 3
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 80 quotes from the Lawyer James Boswell, starting from October 29, 1740! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!