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A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.

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
Passion
Book
Play
Love
Romances
Hath
Romance
Ridiculous

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There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of the world,--to despise it, to return the like, or to endeavor to live so as to avoid it the first of these is usually pretended, the last is almost impossible, the universal practice is for the second.
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A Child will make two Dishes at an Entertainment for Friends and when the Family dines alone, the fore or hind Quarter will makea reasonable Dish and seasoned with a little Pepper or Salt, will be very good Boiled on the fourth Day, especially in Winter.
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It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.
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Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.
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Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?
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It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be: and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.
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Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
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A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious and low.
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The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
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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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All Pretences of foretelling by Astrology, are Deceits for this manifest Reason, because the Wise and Learned, who can only judge whether there be any Truth in this Science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise it and none but the poor ignorant Vulgar give it any Credit.
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Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.
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For, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition: that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
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Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.
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Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.
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I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.
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Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind.
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I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water.
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A carpenter is known by his chips.
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He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
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