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

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Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
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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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Whence proceeds this weight we lay On what detracting people say? Their utmost malice cannot make Your head, or tooth, or finger ache Nor spoil your shapes, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place.
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Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
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My Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.
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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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Coffee makes us severe, and grave and philosophical.
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My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire I was the Third of five Sons.
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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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Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.
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It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and malice together, because it gives his answerer double work.
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Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.
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No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.
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Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
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Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.
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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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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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In men desire begets love, and in women love begets desire.
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This is every cook's opinion - no savory dish without an onion, but lest your kissing should be spoiled your onions must be fully boiled.
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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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