Jonathan Swift Quotes
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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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Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.
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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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My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons.
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Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives and the sincerest part of our devotion.
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The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
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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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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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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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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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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 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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Argument is the worst sort of conversation.
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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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The ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion.
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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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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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Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
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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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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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Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.
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Let a man be never so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.