Date: 1791

"While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"The feeling of languor, which succeeds the animation of gaiety, is itself a very severe pain; and when the mind is then vacant, a thousand disappointments and vexations rush in and excruciate. Will not many even of my fairest readers allow this to be true?"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"But, enough of this subject; for your angry voice at Ashbourne upon it, still sounds aweful 'in my mind's ears.'"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"I have a wonderful superstitious love of mystery; when, perhaps, the truth is, that it is owing to the cloudy darkness of my own mind."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"I suppose, Sir, he has thought superficially, and seized the first notions which occurred to his mind. … Why then, Sir, still he is like a dog"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"His supposed orthodoxy here cramped the vigorous powers of his understanding. He was confined by a chain which early imagination and long habit made him think massy and strong, but which, had he ventured to try, he could at once have snapt asunder."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"I said to him, I was sure that human life was not machinery, that is to say, a chain of fatality planned and directed by the Supreme Being, as it had in it so much wickedness and misery, so many instances of both, as that by which my mind was now clouded."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"Talking of the religious discipline proper for unhappy convicts, he said, 'Sir, one of our regular clergy will probably not impress their minds sufficiently: they should be attended by a Methodist preacher, or a Popish priest.'"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"In short, it must not be concealed, that like many other good and pious men, amongst whom we may place the Apostle Paul, upon his own authority, Johnson was not free from propensities which were ever 'warring against the law of his mind,'--and that in his combats with them, he was sometimes over...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"LORD TRIMBLESTOWN. 'True, Sir. As the ladies love to see themselves in a glass; so a man likes to see himself in his journal.' ... BOSWELL. "And as a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.'"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)