James Boswell
He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of this fragrant leaf than did Johnson.
What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!
A page of my journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion.
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
There is nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.
A good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.
It is not every man who can be exquisitely miserable, any more than exquisitely happy.
We must take our friends as they are.
I have discovered that we may be in some degree whatever character we choose. Besides, practice forms a man to anything.
A companion loves some agreeable qualities which a man may possess, but a friend loves the man himself.
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.
If venereal delight and the power of propagating the species were permitted only to the virtuous, it would make the world very good.
I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
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.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Men
The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Years
That favorite subject, Myself.Collection: Favorite Subject
Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.Collection: Melancholy
My readers, who may at first be apt to consider Quotation as downright pedantry, will be surprised when I assure them, that next to the simple imitation of sounds and gestures, Quotation is the most natural and most frequent habitude of human nature. For, Quotation must not be confined to passages adduced out of authors. He who cites the opinion, or remark, or saying of another, whether it has been written or spoken, is certainly one who quotes; and this we shall find to be universally practiced.Collection: Simple
If a man is prodigal, he cannot be truly generous.Collection: Men
The connection between authors, printers, and booksellers must be kept up.Collection: Connections
Friendship, "the wine of life," should, like a well-stocked cellar, be continually renewed.Collection: Friendship
If a man who is born to a fortune cannot make himself easier and freer than those who are not, he gains nothing.Collection: Freedom
Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a considerable portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living.Collection: Art
The pleasure of gratifying whim is very great. It is known only by those who are whimsical.Collection: Whimsical
In an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot on the ground.Collection: Tree
Quotation is more universal and more ancient than one would perhaps believe.Collection: Believe
I am now to offer some thoughts upon that sameness or familiarity which we frequently find between passages in different authors without quotation. This may be one of three things either what is called Plagiarism, or Imitation, or Coincidence.Collection: Different
But what can a man see of a library being one day in it?Collection: Men
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.Collection: Character
In every picture there should be shade as well as light.Collection: Light
I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically.Collection: Writing
I have seen many a bear led by a man: but I never before saw a man led by a bear.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Drinking
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.Collection: Country
My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.Collection: Mind
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.Collection: Evil
Dr Johnson said, the inscription should have been in Latin, as every thing intended to be universal and permanent, should be.Collection: Latin
In every place, where there is any thing worthy of observation, there should be a short printed directory for strangers.Collection: Stranger
All censure of a man's self is oblique praise.Collection: Men
Influence must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it should.Collection: Influence
The scent of Sloth tempts a smug man.Collection: Men
My father had declared a predilection for heirs general, that is, males and females indiscriminately.... I, on the other hand, had a zealous partiality for heirs male, however remote.Collection: Father
Addison writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy that a wise and accomplished companion is talking to them; so thathe insinuates his sentiments and taste into their minds by an imperceptible influence. Johnson writes like a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an academical chair. They attend with awe and admiration; and his precepts are impressed upon them by his commanding eloquence. Addison's style, like a light wine, pleases everybody from the first. Johnson's, like a liquor of more body, seems too strong at first, but, by degrees, is highly relished.Collection: Wise
My definition of Man is, a Cooking Animal. The beasts have memory, judgement, and all the faculties and passions of our mind, in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook....Man alone can dress a good dish; and every man whatever is more or less a cook, in seasoning what he himself eats.Collection: Memories
Why should not the knowledge, the skill, the expertness, the assiduity, and the spirited hazards of trade and commerce, when crowned with success, be entitled to give those flattering distinctions by which mankind are so universally captivated? Such are the specious, but false arguments for a proposition which always will find numerous advocates, in a nation where men are every day starting up from obscurity to wealth. To refute them is needless. The general sense of mankind cries out, with irresistible force, "Un gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme.Collection: Men
We had some port, and drank damnation to the play and eternal remorse to the author.Collection: Drinking