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James Boswell

James Boswell Quotes

Lawyer

James Boswell, born on October 29, 1740, and died on May 19, 1795, was a Scottish lawyer and writer. He is best known for his biography, 'The Life of Samuel Johnson,' which provides a detailed account of the life and thoughts of the 18th-century British writer Samuel Johnson.

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Famous James Boswell Quotes

“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.”

May Character Stories Speak Numbers Air Effects Hero Various Tone Opera Composition Delightful Animation Johnson Succession Subordinates True Story

Book:Boswell, the great biographer, 1789-1795

Source: Boswell, the great biographer, 1789-1795

“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.”

Wells Kind Has Beens Character Death Wish My Own Pay Relation Funeral Invited Pious

Book:Boswell's Edinburgh Journals 1767-1786

Source: Boswell's Edinburgh Journals 1767-1786

“[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.”

Men Character Mirrors Dresses Journal Autobiography

Book:Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Their Tour to the Hebrides

Source: Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Their Tour to the Hebrides

“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.”

Men Wells Made Two Character Helping Used Hours Differences Opinion Watches Expression Drawing Statements Manners Compare Clock Distinction Plates Johnson Brighter Neat

Author:James Boswell

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

Men Life May Character Form Success Practice Degrees

Author:James Boswell