James Boswell is considered the father of the modern biography, and certainly created one of the greatest biographies ever written in his very long Life of Samuel Johnson. The book is a delight to read, but is more a book to be sampled than to be read cover-to-cover. It’s filled with anecdotes and quotations from Samuel Johnson, a great man with a witty way of words. Here are a few of the best things Johnson ever said.
#1. On his own work:
Johnson spent nine years compiling A Dictionary of the English Language, a monumental work and a tremendous achievement. This is not to say that he never made a mistake. Once, in a social setting, a woman asked him why he had defined “pastern” as the knee of a horse. (It’s actually the sloping part of the foot between a horse’s fetlock and the hoof.) His answer was unabashed: “Ignorance, Madame, pure ignorance.”
#2. On writing:
In discussing a trip to Italy with Boswell, he mentioned that he would not be writing about his experiences, because no one would pay him for the piece. He said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”
#3. On the peeling of an orange:
I particularly enjoy this quote because it highlights the silliness that Boswell and Johnson could sometimes resort to. Boswell reports this exchange regarding an orange:
“Johnson: ‘I have a great love for them.’ Boswell: ‘And pray, Sir, what do you do with them? You scrape them, it seems, very neatly, and what next?’ Johnson: ‘I let them dry, Sir.’ Boswell: ‘And what next?’ Johnson: ‘Nay, Sir, you shall know their fate no further.’”
#4. On life at sea:
A servant of Johnson’s, Francis Barber, had left him and gone to sea. For a while, it was supposed that he had been impressed, but Johnson later found out that he had gone voluntarily. Tobias Smollett wrote a letter on Johnson’s behalf to get the man released, saying that he was sickly and not cut out for life on a ship. It turned out that Barber had not wished to be released, but he was anyway, and returned to Johnson’s employ. Johnson could not conceive that anyone would go to sea voluntarily. “No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.”
#5. On an acquaintance:
Johnson could be caustic in his evaluation of others. “That fellow seems to have but one idea, and that is a wrong one.”
#6. On attorneys:
Boswell was an attorney, and Johnson enjoyed needling him about it. Once, when a gentleman, whom no one seemed to know much about, had left their company, Johnson said that “he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney.”
#7. On philosophy:
Once, after leaving church with Boswell, the two men began discussing Bishop Berkeley’s “proof” of the nonexistence of matter. Boswell stated that even if the theory wasn’t true, it would be impossible to refute it. Johnson kicked at a large stone violently, his foot bouncing back. “I refute it thus,” he said.
#8, On female preachers:
“A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
#9. On the temptations of the stage:
Johnson loved the theater, and used to dress in an especially festive manner when he attended. He had a favorite red waistcoat with gold lace that he wore, and a gold laced hat. After the performance, he used to go backstage and enjoy convivial company with his great friend, David Garrick, and the other actors and actresses.
Eventually, however, he had to give it all up. He told his friend, “I’ll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.”
#10. On wine:
He enjoyed wine, he told Boswell, in a conversation between the two of them, John Spottiswoode, an attorney, and the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, but he only wished for it when he was alone. Wine gives pleasure, a good thing, but it also makes a man animated without blessing him with wisdom or wit. “Wine makes a man more pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.”
Sources: James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791.