Date: 1785

"He [Johnson] said, he did not grudge Burke's being the first man in the House of Commons, for he was the first man every where; but he grudged that a fellow who makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet, should make a figure in the House of Commons, mere...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"His mind was so full of imagery, that he might have been perpetually a poet."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"Meals are wished for from the cravings of vacuity of mind, as well as from the desire of eating."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"I have often experienced, that scenes through which a man has passed, improve by lying in the memory: they grow mellow."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"I answered I would not; and he applauded my setting such a value on an accession of new images in my mind."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"As in filling a vessel drop by dy drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. "

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"Johnson was much attached to London: he observed, that a man stored his mind better there, than any where else; and that in remote situations a man's body might be feasted, but his mind was starved, and his faculties apt to degenerate, from want of exercise and competition."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"This is a strong confirmation of the truth of a remark of his, which I have had occasion to quote elsewhere 5, that 'a man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it;' for, notwithstanding his constitutional indolence, his depression of spirits, and his labour in carrying on hi...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"Every page of the Rambler shews a mind teeming with classical allusion and poetical imagery."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)