Top 60 James Boswell Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “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 acts of kindness there is, at last, one which makes the heart run over.”

— James Boswell

2. “A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinter legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to see it done at all.”

— James Boswell

3. “That favorite subject, Myself.”

— James Boswell

4. “Friendship, “the wine of life,” should, like a well-stocked cellar, be continually renewed.”

— James Boswell

5. “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.”

— James Boswell

6. “All censure of a man’s self is oblique praise.”

— James Boswell

7. “The value of every story depends on its being true. A story is a picture either of an individual or of human nature in general: if it be false, it is a picture of nothing.”

— James Boswell

8. “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

9. “The pleasure of gratifying whim is very great. It is known only by those who are whimsical.”

— James Boswell

10. “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.”

— James Boswell

Featured in: Strong Quotes

11. “My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.”

— James Boswell

12. “But what can a man see of a library being one day in it?”

— James Boswell

13. “I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don’t know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.”

— James Boswell

14. “A companion loves some agreeable qualities which a man may possess, but a friend loves the man himself.”

— James Boswell

15. “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.”

— James Boswell

16. “I have discovered that we may be in some degree whatever character we choose. Besides, practice forms a man to anything...”

— James Boswell

17. “I am, I flatter myself, completely a citizen of the world. In my travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France, I never felt myself from home.”

— James Boswell

18. “Those who would extirpate evil from the world know little of human nature. As well might punch be palatable without souring as existence agreeable without care.”

— James Boswell

19. “Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen. It is assuming a superiority, and it is particularly wrong to question a man concerning himself. There may be parts of his former life he may not wish to be made known to other persons, or even brought to his own recollection.”

— James Boswell

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

— James Boswell

21. “We must take our friends as they are.”

— James Boswell

22. “I, who have no sisters or brothers, look with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to friends.”

— James Boswell

23. “Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.”

— James Boswell

24. “In every picture there should be shade as well as light.”

— James Boswell

25. “It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.”

— James Boswell

26. “One must be strict even in little things.”

— James Boswell

27. “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

28. “In an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot on the ground.”

— James Boswell

29. “Dr Johnson said, the inscription should have been in Latin, as every thing intended to be universal and permanent, should be.”

— James Boswell

30. “The scent of Sloth tempts a smug man.”

— James Boswell

31. “If a man is prodigal, he cannot be truly generous.”

— James Boswell

32. “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.”

— James Boswell

33. “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.”

— James Boswell

34. “No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port for men: but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy. In the first place brandy will do soonest for a man what drinking can do for him.”

— James Boswell

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

— James Boswell

36. “Writing a book I have found to be like building a house. A man forms a plan, and collects materials.”

— James Boswell

37. “Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.”

— James Boswell

38. “After I went to bed I had a curious fancy as to dreams. In sleep the doors of the mind are shut, and thoughts come jumping in at the windows. They tumble headlong, and therefore are so disorderly and strange. Sometimes they are stout and light on their feet, and then they are rational dreams.”

— James Boswell

39. “I have seen many a bear led by a man: but I never before saw a man led by a bear.”

— James Boswell

40. “The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.”

— James Boswell

41. “We had some port, and drank damnation to the play and eternal remorse to the author.”

— James Boswell

42. “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.”

— James Boswell

43. “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.”

— James Boswell

44. “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.”

— James Boswell

45. “I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of this fragrant leaf than did Johnson.”

— James Boswell

46. “After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, “I refute it thus.”

— James Boswell

47. “For my own part I think no innocent species of wit or pleasantry should be suppressed: and that a good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.”

— James Boswell

48. “What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!”

— James Boswell

49. “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

50. “I find I journalize too tediously. Let me try to abbreviate.”

— James Boswell