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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With a whirl of thought oppressed I sink from reverie to rest. An horrid vision seized my head, I saw the graves give up their dead.
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A chuck under the chin is worth two kisses.
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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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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 men desire begets love, and in women love begets desire.
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Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination.
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And, is not Virtue in Mankind The Nutriment that feeds the Mind?
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Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.
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Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
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Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.
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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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Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.
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Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.
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Tis nothing when you are used to it.
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Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
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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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Perpetual aiming at wit is a very bad part of conversation. It is done to support a character: it generally fails it is a sort of insult on the company, and a restraint upon the speaker.
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I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own where the law hath not been able to find an expedient.
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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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