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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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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Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe, how much it altered her person for the worse.
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The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men in the course of virtue, but seldom or ever reclaims the vicious.
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All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.
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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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'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.
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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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111 company is like a dog, who dirts those most whom he loves best.
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The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
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Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
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The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
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Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
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I've often wish'd that I had clear, For life, six hundred pounds a year A handsome house to lodge a friend A river at my garden's end A terrace walk, and half a rood Of land set out to plant a wood.
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... the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion ... that is to say all those who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers.
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A carpenter is known by his chips.
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If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste.
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In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.
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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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I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.
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One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
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