Quotes by James Boswell

• 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.
• A good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.
• 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.
• He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
• I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
• I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of this fragrant leaf than did Johnson.
• If venereal delight and the power of propagating the species were permitted only to the virtuous, it would make the world very good.
• It is not every man who can be exquisitely miserable, any more than exquisitely happy.
• There is nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.
• We must take our friends as they are.
• A companion loves some agreeable qualities which a man may possess, but a friend loves the man himself.