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
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.
men views may
When we know exactly all a man's views and how he comes to speak and act so and so, we lose any respect for him, though we may love and admire him.
family men rights
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.
country men west-indies
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.
book writing men
Writing a book I have found to be like building a house. A man forms a plan, and collects materials.
men new-friends he-man
The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.
men shoes feet
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 self praise
All censure of a man's self is oblique praise.
character men mirrors
[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.
wine men giving
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.
real men quality
A companion loves some agreeable qualities which a man may possess, but a friend loves the man himself.
friendship men people
When a man is familiar with many people he must expect many disagreeable familiarizations.
men order psychological
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.