James Boswell Quotes

James Boswell presents witty observations on humanity and wit, a treat for anyone interested in ethics and communication.

31 quotes

1. 'Sir,' said Mr Johnson, 'a lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.'

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

3. The best good man, with the worst natur'd muse.

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

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

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

7. My lord and Dr Johnson disputed a little, whether the savage or the London shopkeeper had the best existence; his lordship, as usual, preferring the savage.

8. I regretted I was not the head of a clan; however, though not possessed of such an hereditary advantage, I would always endeavour to make my tenants follow me.

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

10. When I called upon Dr. Johnson next morning, I found him highly satisfied with his colloquial prowess the preceding evening. 'Well, (said he,) we had good talk.' BOSWELL: 'Yes, Sir, you tossed and gored several persons.'

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

12. 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.

13. You are a philosopher, Dr. Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.

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

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

16. [...] for the Doctor observed, that no man takes upon himself small blemishes without supposing that great abilities are attributed to him; and that, in short, this affectation of candour or modesty was but another kind of indirect self-praise, and had its foundation in vanity.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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.

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

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. Have a sense of piety ever on your mind, and be ever mindful that this is subject to no change, but will last you as long as life and support you in death. Elevate your soul by prayer and by contemplation without mystical enthusiasm.

24. There is indeed a strange prejudice against Quotation.

25. We must take our friends as they are.

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

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

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

29. In comparing these two writers, he [Samuel Johnson] used this expression: "that there was as great a difference between them as between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who could tell the hour by looking on the dial-plate." This was a short and a figurative statement of his distinction between drawing characters of nature and characters only of manners, but I cannot help being of opinion, that the neat watches of Fielding are as well constructed as the large clocks of Richardson, and that his dial plates are brighter.

30. 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.

31. 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.