James Boswell Quotes

I am so fond of tea that I could write a whole dissertation on its virtues.

The great business of his life (he said) was to escape from himself; this disposition he considered as the disease of his mind, which nothing cured but company.

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

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

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

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

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

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.

The worst of Warburton is, that he has a rage for saying something, when there's nothing to be said.

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

He that shall resolutely excite his faculties, or exert his virtues, will soon make himself superiour to the seasons; and may set at defiance the morning mist and the evening damp, the blasts of the east, and the clouds of the south[

[...] I observed he [Samuel Johnson] poured a large quantity of it [wine] into a glass, and swallowed it greedily. Everything about his character and manners was forcible and violent; there never was any moderation; many a day did he fast, many a year did he refrain from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously; when he did drink wine, it was copiously. He could practise abstinence, but not temperance.

Mr. Langton one day asked him [Samuel Johnson] how he had acquired so accurate a knowledge of Latin, in which, I believe, he was exceeded by no man of his time; he said, 'My master whipt me very well. Without that, Sir, I should have done nothing.' He told Mr. Langton, that while Hunter was flogging his boys unmercifully, he used to say, 'And this I do to save you from the gallows.' Johnson, upon all occasions, expressed his approbation of enforcing instruction by means of the rod. 'I would rather (said he) have the rod to be the general terrour to all, to make them learn, than tell a child, if you do thus, or thus, you will be more esteemed than your brothers or sisters. The rod produces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there's an end on't; whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief; you make brothers and sisters hate each other.

Once when somebody produced a newspaper in which there was a letter of stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of which Johnson himself came in for a share,––‘Pray (said he), let us have it read aloud from beginning to end’; which being done, he with a ludicrous earnestness, and not directing his look to any particular person, called out, ‘Are we alive after all this satire?

Every man should keep minutes of whatever he reads. Every circumstance of his studies should be recorded; what books he has consulted; how much of them he has read; at what times; how often the same authors; and what opinions he formed of them, at different periods of his life. Such an account would much illustrate the history of his mind.