James Boswell Quotes

"A page of my journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion."
- James Boswell
(Related: May)

"A good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation."
- James Boswell
(Related: Conversation, May)

"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
(Related: Conversation, May, Wit)

"He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it."
- James Boswell
(Related: Wit)

"I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am."
- James Boswell
(Related: Hate, Mankind)

"I have discovered that we may be in some degree whatever character we choose. Besides, practice forms a man to anything."
- James Boswell
(Related: Character, Man, May, Practice)

"I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding."
- James Boswell
(Related: Argument, Understanding)

"I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of this fragrant leaf than did Johnson."
- James Boswell

"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
(Related: Power, Delight, World)

"It is not every man who can be exquisitely miserable, any more than exquisitely happy."
- James Boswell
(Related: Man)

"There is nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends."
- James Boswell
(Related: Love, Winning, Friends, Laughter, Nothing, Worth)

"We must take our friends as they are."
- James Boswell
(Related: Friends)

"A companion loves some agreeable qualities which a man may possess, but a friend loves the man himself."
- James Boswell
(Related: Friend, Man, May)