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That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.

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
Belief
Fortuitous
Universe
Accidental
Fall
Alphabet
Science
Ingenious
Believe
Atoms
Would
Formed
Evolution
Concourse
Philosophy
Treatise

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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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Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
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The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.
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It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be: and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.
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You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday
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She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body.
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Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
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Surely mortal man is a broomstick!
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Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.
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Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.
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Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending. May you live all the days of your life.
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It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.
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Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind.
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Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.
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I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.
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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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The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
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He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
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How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.
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You must take the will for the deed.
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