29 October 2023

Happy Birthday, Boswell

Willison, James Boswell, 1765


Every man should keep minutes of whatever he reads. Every circumstance of his studies should be recorded; what books he has consulted; how much of them he has read; at what times; how often the same authors; and what opinions he formed of them, at different periods of his life. Such an account would much illustrate the history of his mind.

James Boswell, born on this day in 1740, paraphrasing Voltaire in his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

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