James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck, was a Scottish biographer and diarist, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson, which the modern Johnsonian critic Harold Bloom has claimed is the greatest biography written in the English language...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth29 October 1740
hero character air
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.
death character funeral
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.
character men mirrors
[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.
character men expression
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.
character men practice
I have discovered that we may be in some degree whatever character we choose. Besides, practice forms a man to anything....
fifty man suppose thousand whom woman women
Boswell: "Pray, Sir, do you not suppose that there are fifty women in the world, with any one of whom a man may be as happy, as with any one woman in particular?" Johnson: "Ay, Sir, fifty thousand
quotes understanding
I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
laughter love wear worth
There is nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.
quotes
He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
animal men suffering
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.
men generosity prodigals
If a man is prodigal, he cannot be truly generous.
melancholy silent unhappiness
Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.
mother ignorance worship
Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.
whimsical pleasure whim
The pleasure of gratifying whim is very great. It is known only by those who are whimsical.