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Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.

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
Humans
Provision
Life
Appetite
Like
Poison
Beast
Appetites
Destruction
Snares
Literature
Sensuality
Find
Beasts
Human
Brutes

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

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It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.
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There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.
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Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
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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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The best Maxim I know in this life is, to drink your Coffee when you can, and when you cannot, to be easy without it. While you continue to be splenetic, count upon it I will always preach. Thus much I sympathize with you that I am not cheerful enough to write, for I believe Coffee once a week is necessary to that.
Jonathan Swift
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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
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Books, the children of the brain.
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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.
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There is nothing in this world constant, but inconstancy.
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Liberty of conscience is nowadays only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavoring to propagate that belief as much as they can.
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Whoe'er excels in what we prize, Appears a hero in our eyes Each girl, when pleased with what is taught, Will have the teacher in her thought. . . . . A blockhead with melodious voice, In boarding-schools may have his choice.
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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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A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour.
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Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
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A maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith.
Jonathan Swift
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I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
Jonathan Swift
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War: that mad game the world so loves to play.
Jonathan Swift
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What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.
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There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.
Jonathan Swift
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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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