Date: 1785

"Sir, Dr Cheyne has laid down a rule to himself on this subject, which should be imprinted on every mind: 'To neglect nothing to secure my eternal peace, more than if I had been certified I should die within the day: nor to mind any thing that my secular obligations and duties demanded of me, les...

— 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

"To see Dr Samuel Johnson lying in that bed, in the isle of Sky, in the house of Miss Flora Macdonald, struck me with such a group of ideas as it is not easy for words to describe, as they passed through the mind."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"The repetition of words which he had so often previously used, made a strong impression on my imagination; and, by a natural course of thinking, led me to consider how our present adventures would appear to me at a future period."

— 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 beg leave to say something upon second sight, of which I have related two instances, as they impressed my mind at the time."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"To entertain a visionary notion that one sees a distant or future event, may be called superstition; but the correspondence of the fact or event with such an impression on the fancy, though certainly very wonderful, if proved, has no more connection with superstition, than magnetism or electrici...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"The mind of man can bear a certain pressure; but there is a point when it can bear no more."

— 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: 1785

"To apply his great mind to minute particulars, is wrong: it is like taking an immense balance, such as is kept on quays for weighing cargoes of ships, to weigh a guinea. I knew I had neat little scales, which would do better; and that his attention to every thing which falls in his way, and his ...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)