Jonathan Swift Quotes
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War: that mad game the world so loves to play.
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Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
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It often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it.
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Men of wit, learning and virtue might strike out every offensive or unbecoming passage from plays.
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By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.
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Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives and the sincerest part of our devotion.
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My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons.
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The most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.
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Whoe'er excels in what we prize, Appears a hero in our eyes; Each girl, when pleased with what is taught, Will have the teacher in her thought. . . . . A blockhead with melodious voice, In boarding-schools may have his choice.
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Exploding many things under the name of trifles is a very false proof either of wisdom or magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions with regard to fame.
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When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
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The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
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No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before.
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Nothing more unqualified the man to act with prudence than a misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt.
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Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.
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If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
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The ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion.
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Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.
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I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water.
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Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation td posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.
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It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.
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Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.
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Let a man be never so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
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The more careless, the more modish.