Quote

For poetry, he's past his prime, He takes an hour to find a rhyme His fire is out, his wit decayed, His fancy sunk, his muse a jade. I'd have him throw away his pen, But there's no talking to some men.

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
Away
Fancy
Decayed
Past
Throw
Jade
Find
Hour
Sunk
Men
Poetry
Muse
Takes
Rhyme
Fire
Pens
Hours
Wit
Talking
Prime

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If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels.
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Had Windham possessed discretion in debate, or Sheridan in conduct, they might have ruled their age.
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If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
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Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.
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So geographers, in Africa maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er uninhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns
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Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.
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The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
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A wise man will find us to be rogues by our faces.
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The affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.
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Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.
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And, is not Virtue in Mankind The Nutriment that feeds the Mind?
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Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination.
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There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
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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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'T is an old maxim in the schools, That flattery 's the food of fools Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit.
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Wise people are never less alone than when they are alone.
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For, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition: that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
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Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
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