Jonathan Swift Quotes
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Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. If you are civil to the voluble they will abuse your patience; if brusque, your character.
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Many a truth is told in jest.
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All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.
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A college joke to cure the dumps.
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Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
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What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he? But rather than they should excel, He'd wish his rivals all in Hell.
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An English tongue, if refined to a certain standard, might perhaps be fixed forever.
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Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.
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Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death.
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No wise man ever wished to be younger.
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An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.
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I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.
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I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
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What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.
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One principal object of good-breeding is to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men, our superiors, our equals, and those below us.
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If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.
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Walls have tongues, and hedges ears.
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Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
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This is every cook's opinion - no savory dish without an onion, but lest your kissing should be spoiled your onions must be fully boiled.
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Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.
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A true critic, in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones.
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Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline.
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A chuck under the chin is worth two kisses.
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Just get the right syllable in the proper place.