Daily Inspiration Quote by James Boswell

Boswell’s defense of the pun is really a defense of sociability itself: a small, verbal looseness that signals you’re in company, not court. The phrase “for my own part” is classic Boswellan hedging - a genteel throat-clearing that lets him advance a mildly insurgent claim without sounding like a revolutionary. He’s arguing against suppression, but he does it in the language of restraint, as if even tolerance needs good manners.

The key move is “innocent species.” Boswell isn’t pleading for bawdy free-for-alls; he’s drawing a line between wit as harmless play and wit as weapon. In an 18th-century culture where conversation was a kind of social technology - used to display education, rank, and moral posture - “suppressed” hints at more than personal taste. It evokes the policing of tone: what counts as refined, what’s vulgar, who gets to decide. Puns, with their low-status reputation, are democratic little disruptors. They’re intelligible to many, impressive to few, and that’s part of the point.

Calling a pun one of the “smaller excellencies” is a sly compromise. Boswell grants the hierarchy (true genius sits higher), then insists the minor arts still matter because they keep talk alive. Subtext: brilliance that can’t endure a pun is just another form of snobbery. Conversation isn’t only for proving you’re clever; it’s for making cleverness convivial. Boswell, ever the chronicler of clubrooms and charisma, is voting for a culture where intellect doesn’t have to wear a powdered wig at all times.