Quote

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.

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
Society
Mortal
Understand
Hath
Care
Peculiar
Chant
Take
Mortals
Jargon
Laws
Multiply
Special
Wherein
Written
Likewise
Law
Observed

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

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Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.
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Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?
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The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
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I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.
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And, is not Virtue in Mankind The Nutriment that feeds the Mind?
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Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !
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Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.
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Principally I hate and detest that animal called man although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.
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A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
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Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with the public will convince them as he himself appears convinced.
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My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.
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One principal object of good-breeding is to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men, our superiors, our equals, and those below us.
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Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.
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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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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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Real vision is the ability to see the invisible.
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The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
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Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.
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God hath intended our passions to prevail over reason.
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I shall be like that tree-I shall die at the top.
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