James Boswell

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

We must take our friends as they are.

A good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.

A page of my journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion.

A companion loves some agreeable qualities which a man may possess but a friend loves the man himself.

I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

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.

He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.

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

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.

There is nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.

I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of this fragrant leaf than did Johnson.

Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.

The pleasure of gratifying whim is very great. It is known only by those who are whimsical.

What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

A companion loves some agreeable qualities which a man may possess, but a friend loves the man himself.

I, who have no sisters or brothers, look with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to friends.

I who have no sisters or brothers look with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to friends.