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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That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.
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Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
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A carpenter is known by his chips.
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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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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 Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.
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Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.
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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense are the three great sources of ill manners without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.
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I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.
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Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.
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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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Surely mortal man is a broomstick!
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Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.
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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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In men desire begets love, and in women love begets desire.
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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.
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Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
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