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Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.

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
Perhaps
Veins
Knowing
Accused
Owners
Literature
Soil
Sometimes
Although
Men
Weakness
Soils
Gold
Vein
Strength
Owner

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For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
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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.
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No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.
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No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.
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The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.
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Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?
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One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
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The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
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Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
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There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of the world,--to despise it, to return the like, or to endeavor to live so as to avoid it the first of these is usually pretended, the last is almost impossible, the universal practice is for the second.
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There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.
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Desponding Phyllis was endu'd With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, She trembled when a Man drew near Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: If o'er against her you were plac'd She durst not look above your Waist
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Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
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It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. Future ages shall talk of this they shall be famous to all posterity whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.
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If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.
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Blot out, correct, insert, refine, enlarge, diminish, interline. Be mindful, when invention fails. To scratch your head and bite your nails.
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My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire I was the Third of five Sons.
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The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.
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