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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.

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
Men
Parts
Road
Imagination
Public
Common
Quickness
Often
Commerce
Business
Unfortunate
Great
Management

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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense are the three great sources of ill manners without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.
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A college joke to cure the dumps.
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By the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England.
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It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and malice together, because it gives his answerer double work.
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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.
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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.
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And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.
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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 can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own where the law hath not been able to find an expedient.
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It is likewise to be observed that this society hath a peculiar chant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply.
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Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
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Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.
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If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.
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A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.
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My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire I was the Third of five Sons.
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The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.
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Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !
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The system of morality to be gathered from the ancient sages falls very short of that delivered in the gospel.
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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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Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.
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