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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
Sacrifice
Grow
Grows
Age
Make
Men
Virtuous
Leaving
Devil

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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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Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.
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Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
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A footman may swear but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?
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For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door
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Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.
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Tis nothing when you are used to it.
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Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.
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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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Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
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As love without esteem is capricious and volatile esteem without love is languid and cold.
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It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. Future ages shall talk of this they shall be famous to all posterity whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.
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Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.
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Liberty of conscience is nowadays only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavoring to propagate that belief as much as they can.
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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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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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Come hither, all ye empty things, Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of Kings Who float upon the tide of state, Come hither, and behold your fate. Let pride be taught by this rebuke, How very mean a thing's a Duke From all his ill-got honours flung, Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.
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Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !
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In men desire begets love, and in women love begets desire.
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If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.
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