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Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
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
Young
Knaves
Must
Flatter
Pension
Flattery
Torture
Invention
Lose
Loses
More quotes by Jonathan Swift
There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
Jonathan Swift
Sweeping from butcher's stalls, dung, guts, and blood, Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud, Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.
Jonathan Swift
Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.
Jonathan Swift
Tis nothing when you are used to it.
Jonathan Swift
The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age but that of a good one will not reform it.
Jonathan Swift
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.
Jonathan Swift
'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.
Jonathan Swift
It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.
Jonathan Swift
A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.
Jonathan Swift
Such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up.
Jonathan Swift
Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe, how much it altered her person for the worse.
Jonathan Swift
The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
Jonathan Swift
Rebukes are easy from our betters, From men of quality and letters But when low dunces will affront, What man alive can stand the brunt?
Jonathan Swift
Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.
Jonathan Swift
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
Jonathan Swift
If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.
Jonathan Swift
It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.
Jonathan Swift
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
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.
Jonathan Swift
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.
Jonathan Swift
