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It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.
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
Place
Maxim
Firsts
Maxims
First
Title
Titles
Allows
Second
Everybody
Class
Undoubted
More quotes by Jonathan Swift
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.
Jonathan Swift
Pray steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's, Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies.
Jonathan Swift
Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
Jonathan Swift
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.
Jonathan Swift
Praise is the daughter of present power.
Jonathan Swift
It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.
Jonathan Swift
He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
Jonathan Swift
All Pretences of foretelling by Astrology, are Deceits for this manifest Reason, because the Wise and Learned, who can only judge whether there be any Truth in this Science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise it and none but the poor ignorant Vulgar give it any Credit.
Jonathan Swift
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
Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
Jonathan Swift
Under the rose, since here are none but friends, To own the truth we have some private ends.
Jonathan Swift
In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.
Jonathan Swift
Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
Jonathan Swift
The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.
Jonathan Swift
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
Jonathan Swift
The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
Jonathan Swift
Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
Jonathan Swift
Fond of those hives where folly reigns, And cards and scandal are the chains, Where the pert virgin slights a name, And scorns to redden into shame.
Jonathan Swift
Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.
Jonathan Swift
There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
Jonathan Swift
