Quote

'T is an old maxim in the schools, That flattery 's the food of fools Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit.

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
Fool
Condescend
Bits
Maxim
Food
Maxims
School
Flattery
Take
Fools
Men
Wit
Schools
Cooking

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Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.
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If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
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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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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.
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In church your grandsire cut his throat to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my hearty vote to cut his throat before he married.
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A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.
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I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.
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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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A fig for your bill of fare show me your bill of company.
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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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Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
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In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.
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Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
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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.
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I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
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That incessant envy wherewith the common rate of mankind pursues all superior natures to their own.
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As love without esteem is capricious and volatile esteem without love is languid and cold.
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Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.
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It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.
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If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
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