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Quote by James Boswell

“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.”

Quote by James Boswell

Book:Boswell's Edinburgh Journals 1767-1786

Work

Boswell's Edinburgh Journals 1767-1786

These journals offer a detailed account of James Boswell's experiences and observations during his residence in Edinburgh, providing insights into the social and cultural landscape of the time. more

Author

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. more

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“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.”

Men Family Rights Depends Consequence Property Chastity

Book:Boswell: the ominous years, 1774-1776

Source: Boswell: the ominous years, 1774-1776

“Writing a book I have found to be like building a house. A man forms a plan, and collects materials. He thinks he has enough to raise a large and stately edifice; but after he has arranged, compacted and polished, his work turns out to be a very small performance. The authour however like the builder, knows how much labour his work has cost him; and therefore estimates it at a higher rate than other people think it deserves”

Source: The Journal of a Tour to Corsica and Memoirs of Pascal Paoli

“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

“People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids? A man cannot know himself better than by attending to the feelings of his heart and to his external actions, from which he may with tolerable certainty judge "what manner of person he is." I have therefore determined to keep a daily journal.”

People Knows Men Want Heart May Persons Self Feelings Kids Action Judging Determined Horrible Certainty Journal Autobiography Attending Tolerable Older People

Author:James Boswell

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

Play Eternal Criticism Drinking Remorse Drank Port Damnation

Book:London Journal, 1762-1763, as First Published in 1950 from the Original Manuscript

Source: London Journal, 1762-1763, as First Published in 1950 from the Original Manuscript

“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.”

Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

“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

“My curiosity to see the melancholy spectacle of the executions was so strong that I could not resist it, although I was sensible that I would suffer much from it.... I got upon a scaffold near the fatal tree so that I could clearly see all the dismal scene.... I was most terribly shocked, and thrown into a very deep melancholy.”

Death Suffering Strong Tree Scene Curiosity Thrown Melancholy Sensible Execution Shocked Very Deep

Author:James Boswell

“[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

“My wife, who does not like journalizing, said it was leaving myself embowelled to posterity--a good strong figure. But I think itis rather leaving myself embalmed. It is certainly preserving myself.”

Thinking Doe Said Strong Wife Figures Leaving My Wife Immortality Autobiography Posterity

Author:James Boswell