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There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a talking man having nothing to say.
Jonathan Swift -
All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.
Jonathan Swift
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There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.
Jonathan Swift -
I never knew any man cured of inattention.
Jonathan Swift -
Walls have tongues, and hedges ears.
Jonathan Swift -
Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad.
Jonathan Swift -
When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.
Jonathan Swift -
The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting.
Jonathan Swift
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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.
Jonathan Swift -
I row after health like a waterman.
Jonathan Swift -
It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.
Jonathan Swift -
Silks, velvets, calicoes, and the whole lexicon of female fopperies.
Jonathan Swift -
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.
Jonathan Swift -
A Child will make two Dishes at an Entertainment for Friends; and when the Family dines alone, the fore or hind Quarter will makea reasonable Dish; and seasoned with a little Pepper or Salt, will be very good Boiled on the fourth Day, especially in Winter.
Jonathan Swift
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Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
Jonathan Swift -
Whence proceeds this weight we lay On what detracting people say? Their utmost malice cannot make Your head, or tooth, or finger ache; Nor spoil your shapes, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place.
Jonathan Swift -
What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.
Jonathan Swift -
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
Jonathan Swift -
With a whirl of thought oppressed I sink from reverie to rest. An horrid vision seized my head, I saw the graves give up their dead.
Jonathan Swift -
Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.
Jonathan Swift
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Praise is the daughter of present power.
Jonathan Swift -
A pleasant companion is as good as a coach.
Jonathan Swift -
Every age might perhaps produce one or two geniuses, if they were not sunk under the censure and obloquy of plodding, servile, imitating pedants.
Jonathan Swift -
Such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up.
Jonathan Swift