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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
Invention
Lose
Loses
Young
Knaves
Must
Flatter
Pension
Flattery
Torture

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Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.
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Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
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The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides.
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If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.
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What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.
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By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.
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Blot out, correct, insert, refine, enlarge, diminish, interline. Be mindful, when invention fails. To scratch your head and bite your nails.
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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.
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A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.
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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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How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.
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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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You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday
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Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
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Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
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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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I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.
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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.
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Praise is the daughter of present power.
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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?
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