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When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.

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
Good
Circumstances
Ones
Side
Solicit
Sides
Obtained
Desire
Avarice
Running
Wholly
Anything
Greed
Mind
Minds

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

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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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I shall be like that tree-I shall die at the top.
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When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
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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.
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If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.
Jonathan Swift
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A carpenter is known by his chips.
Jonathan Swift
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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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I am of the level with common Astrologers who, with an old paltry cant, and a few pot-hooks for planets to amuse the vulgar, have too long been suffered to abuse the world.
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Tis nothing when you are used to it.
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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.
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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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And, is not Virtue in Mankind The Nutriment that feeds the Mind?
Jonathan Swift
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If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels.
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One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
Jonathan Swift
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Under the rose, since here are none but friends, To own the truth we have some private ends.
Jonathan Swift
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Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
Jonathan Swift
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For though, in nature, depth and height Are equally held infinite: In poetry, the height we know 'Tis only infinite below.
Jonathan Swift
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The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.
Jonathan Swift
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Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.
Jonathan Swift
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In all I wish, how happy should I be, Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee? So weak thou art that fools thy power despise And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
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