Quote

So, naturalists observe, a flea Hath smaller fleas that on him prey And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum.

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
Ems
Naturalist
Observe
Fleas
Smaller
Proceed
Hath
Bite
Mathematics
Insects
Ads
Infinitum
Prey
Naturalists
Bites
Flea

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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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My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.
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So geographers, in Africa maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er uninhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns
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There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
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No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before.
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A college joke to cure the dumps.
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Praise is the daughter of present power.
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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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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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No man will take counsel, but every man will take money. Therefore, money is better than counsel.
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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.
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Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.
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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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For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door
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Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
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Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
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The best Maxim I know in this life is, to drink your Coffee when you can, and when you cannot, to be easy without it. While you continue to be splenetic, count upon it I will always preach. Thus much I sympathize with you that I am not cheerful enough to write, for I believe Coffee once a week is necessary to that.
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I shall be like that tree-I shall die at the top.
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For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through every corner of nature the difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
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No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.
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