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When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.

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
Leaving
Devil
Sacrifice
Grow
Grows
Age
Make
Men
Virtuous

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hoever wishes to win in this game must have patience and money, since the values are so little constant and the rumors so little founded on truth Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
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The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
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It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
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I shall be like that tree-I shall die at the top.
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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.
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Simplicity, without which no human performance can arrive at perfection.
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Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
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There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.
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One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
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I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.
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The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting.
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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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A lie is an excuse guarded
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No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.
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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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Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
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There is nothing in this world constant, but inconstancy.
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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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Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavor to convict her Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she's right She may then grow wise for spite.
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A jargon form'd from the lost language, wit, Confounded in that Babel of the pit Form'd by diseased conceptions, weak and wild, Sick lust of souls, and an abortive child Born between whores and fops, by lewd compacts, Before the play, or else between the acts Nor wonder, if from such polluted minds Should spring such short and transitory kinds.
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