James Boswell's lengthy biography of Samuel Johnson is available in both abridged and unabridged editions. It is wise to begin with the abridged! I found an abridged version - Everybody's Boswell (G.Bell & Sons, London, 1930) - illustrated by Ernest Shepard, of all people. His illustrations are typically charming.Boswell was the first to use actual conversation as material for biography. And Dr. Johnson had conversation in abundance: he was a philosopher, scholar, wit, curmudgeon and Establishment man.
This painting of Johnson, circa 1772, is by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Discuss the following quotes:
(Honorary Member) Matt Anger's selections:
"Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason."
"If he really does think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons."
"The history of manners is the most valuable. I never set a high value on any other history."
"Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things."
"The excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged, must end in disappointment. If it be asked, what is the improper expectation which it is dangerous to indulge, experience will quickly answer, that it is such expectation raised as is dictated not by reason, but by desire; expectations raised, not by the common occurrences of life, but by the wants of the expectant; an expectation that requires the common course of things to be changed, and the general rules of action to be broken."
Anna's selections:
"Nature has given women so much power that the law has wisely given them little."
"One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts."
"Go into the street and give one man a lecture on morality and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most."
And for many more great quotes go here.
