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A lie is an excuse guarded

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
Guarded
Excuse
Dare
Lying

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If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste.
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111 company is like a dog, who dirts those most whom he loves best.
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Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.
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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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Careful observers may foretell the hour (By sure prognostics) when to dread a show'r. While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
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We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
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Tis nothing when you are used to it.
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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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Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.
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A wise man will find us to be rogues by our faces.
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There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.
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Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.
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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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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.
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For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
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The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides.
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Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.
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When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.
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Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.
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Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
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