Jonathan Swift Quotes
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All Pretences of foretelling by Astrology, are Deceits; for this manifest Reason, because the Wise and Learned, who can only judge whether there be any Truth in this Science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise it; and none but the poor ignorant Vulgar give it any Credit.
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A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.
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There is no talent so useful toward rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of men, and in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence.
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"Lawyers Are": Those whose interests and abilities lie in perverting, confounding and eluding the law.
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Conversation is but carving! Give no more to every guest Than he's able to digest.
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Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.
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Books, the children of the brain.
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One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
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Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination.
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Love why do we one passion call, When 'tis a compound of them all? Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet, In all their equipages meet; Where pleasures mix'd with pains appear, Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.
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From not the gravest of Divines, Accept for once some serious Lines.
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Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.
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Wise people are never less alone than when they are alone.
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Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with the public will convince them as he himself appears convinced.
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A lie is an excuse guarded.
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Ay, do despise me, I'm the prouder for it; I like to be despised.
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She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse.
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There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them.
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Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
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By the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England.
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Have you not observed that there is a lower kind of discretion and regularity, which seldom fails of raising men to the highest station in the court, the church, and the law?
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War: that mad game the world so loves to play.
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Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.
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Come, agree, the law's costly.