Jonathan Swift Quotes
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In church your grandsire cut his throat; to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my hearty vote to cut his throat before he married.
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There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.
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It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us; it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.
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He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
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Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
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Had Windham possessed discretion in debate, or Sheridan in conduct, they might have ruled their age.
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Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy.
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A lie is an excuse guarded.
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Your onions should be thoroughly boiled.
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I must complain the cards are ill shuffled till I have a good hand.
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A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
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Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer; I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.
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Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.
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A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?
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Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine and women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age.
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When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.
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If they would, for Example, praise the Beauty of a Woman, or any other Animal, they describe it by Rhombs, Circles, Parallelograms, Ellipses, and other geometrical terms.
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Pray steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's, Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies.
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In all I wish, how happy should I be, Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee? So weak thou art that fools thy power despise; And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
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Hail, follow, well met, All dirty and wet: Find out, if you can, Who's master, who's man.
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This made me reflect, how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.
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We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
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It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.
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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.