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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.

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
Men
Criticism
Works
Genius
Detractors
Age
Complain
Next
Wit
Ever
Resolve
Never
Complaining
Would
Critics

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Vision is seeing the invisible.
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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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Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.
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Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.
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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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Conversation is but carving! Give no more to every guest Than he's able to digest.
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Under the rose, since here are none but friends, To own the truth we have some private ends.
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O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee.
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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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If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.
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For poetry, he's past his prime, He takes an hour to find a rhyme His fire is out, his wit decayed, His fancy sunk, his muse a jade. I'd have him throw away his pen, But there's no talking to some men.
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Tis nothing when you are used to it.
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Words are but wind and learning is nothing but words ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
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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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What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he? But rather than they should excel, He'd wish his rivals all in Hell.
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Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
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Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.
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Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
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If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning etc., beginning from his youth, and so go to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last.
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The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting.
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