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Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.

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
Books
Reading
Managed
Book
Generally
Argument
Conversation
Usually
Worst
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More quotes by Jonathan Swift

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Whoe'er excels in what we prize, Appears a hero in our eyes Each girl, when pleased with what is taught, Will have the teacher in her thought. . . . . A blockhead with melodious voice, In boarding-schools may have his choice.
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It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.
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We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same.
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No man will take counsel, but every man will take money. Therefore, money is better than counsel.
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A maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith.
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War: that mad game the world so loves to play.
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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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By the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England.
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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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O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee.
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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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Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.
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Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
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It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.
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What they do in heaven we are ignorant of what they do not do we are told expressly.
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She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body.
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A wise man will find us to be rogues by our faces.
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Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.
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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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Surely mortal man is a broomstick!
Jonathan Swift