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For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

Jonathan Swift

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Jonathan Swift
Age: 77 †
Born: 1667
Born: November 30
Died: 1745
Died: October 19
Essayist
Human Rights Activist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Pamphleteer
Philosopher
Poet
Priest
Prosaist
Public Figure
Dublin city
Isaac Bickerstaff
M. B. Drapier
Lemuel Gulliver
Simon Wagstaff
Reason
Without
Governed
Consent
Definition
Definitions
Slavery
Government

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They say fish should swim thrice * * * first it should swim in the sea (do you mind me?) then it should swim in butter, and at last, sirrah, it should swim in good claret.
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Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavor to convict her Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she's right She may then grow wise for spite.
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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.
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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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It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
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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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My Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.
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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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Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.
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I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either.
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A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.
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Everyone desires long life, not one old age.
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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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Wise people are never less alone than when they are alone.
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The more careless, the more modish.
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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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Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.
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Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.
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If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.
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Words are but wind and learning is nothing but words ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
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