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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
Worst
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Books
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Book
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Argument
Conversation
Usually
More quotes by Jonathan Swift
Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex.
Jonathan Swift
The affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.
Jonathan Swift
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.
Jonathan Swift
Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation td posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.
Jonathan Swift
Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired
Jonathan Swift
Under the rose, since here are none but friends, To own the truth we have some private ends.
Jonathan Swift
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.
Jonathan Swift
The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
Jonathan Swift
With a whirl of thought oppressed I sink from reverie to rest. An horrid vision seized my head, I saw the graves give up their dead.
Jonathan Swift
Words are but wind and learning is nothing but words ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
Jonathan Swift
I'm up and down and round about, Yet all the world can't find me out Though hundreds have employed their leisure, They never yet could find my measure.
Jonathan Swift
I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.
Jonathan Swift
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Jonathan Swift
Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
Jonathan Swift
You cannot reason a person out of something they were not reasoned into.
Jonathan Swift
And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.
Jonathan Swift
Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.
Jonathan Swift
Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.
Jonathan Swift
Blot out, correct, insert, refine, enlarge, diminish, interline. Be mindful, when invention fails. To scratch your head and bite your nails.
Jonathan Swift
But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
Jonathan Swift
