Guess quote

James Boswell [1740-1795] Scottish

Rank: 104
Lawyer, Biographer

James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck, was a Scottish biographer and diarist, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson, which the modern Johnsonian critic Harold Bloom has claimed is the greatest biography written in the English language.

Quote	Tags	Rank
He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.		101
A good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.		102
A companion loves some agreeable qualities which a man may possess, but a friend loves the man himself.		103
I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.		104
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.		105
There is nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.		106
I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of this fragrant leaf than did Johnson.		107
We must take our friends as they are.		108
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.		109
If venereal delight and the power of propagating the species were permitted only to the virtuous, it would make the world very good.		110
What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!		111
I have discovered that we may be in some degree whatever character we choose. Besides, practice forms a man to anything.		112
A page of my journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion.		113
It is not every man who can be exquisitely miserable, any more than exquisitely happy.		114

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