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Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.

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
People
Glory
Youth
Spur
Talent
Spurs
Literature
Inventor
Age
Birthday
Interest
Invention
Soul
Souls
Great
Judgment

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

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What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he? But rather than they should excel, He'd wish his rivals all in Hell.
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If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
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As love without esteem is capricious and volatile esteem without love is languid and cold.
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He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.
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So, naturalists observe, a flea Hath smaller fleas that on him prey And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum.
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Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.
Jonathan Swift
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Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together Let none but Him who rules the thunder Put this man and woman asunder.
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You cannot reason a person out of something they were not reasoned into.
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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.
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War: that mad game the world so loves to play.
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Books, like men their authors, have no more than one wayofcoming intothe world, but there areten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.
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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.
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Perpetual aiming at wit is a very bad part of conversation. It is done to support a character: it generally fails it is a sort of insult on the company, and a restraint upon the speaker.
Jonathan Swift
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We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Jonathan Swift
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It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.
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Hail fellow, well met.
Jonathan Swift
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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.
Jonathan Swift
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Sweeping from butcher's stalls, dung, guts, and blood, Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud, Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.
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Coffee makes us severe, and grave and philosophical.
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Vision is seeing the invisible.
Jonathan Swift