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A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.

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
Nasty
Nice
Ideas
Men

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

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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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For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
Jonathan Swift
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It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.
Jonathan Swift
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Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.
Jonathan Swift
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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.
Jonathan Swift
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The best Maxim I know in this life is, to drink your Coffee when you can, and when you cannot, to be easy without it. While you continue to be splenetic, count upon it I will always preach. Thus much I sympathize with you that I am not cheerful enough to write, for I believe Coffee once a week is necessary to that.
Jonathan Swift
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They say fish should swim thrice * * * first it should swim in the sea (do you mind me?) then it should swim in butter, and at last, sirrah, it should swim in good claret.
Jonathan Swift
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I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
Jonathan Swift
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There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity nor any which by ill management makes so contemptible a figure.
Jonathan Swift
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Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation td posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.
Jonathan Swift
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Desponding Phyllis was endu'd With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, She trembled when a Man drew near Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: If o'er against her you were plac'd She durst not look above your Waist
Jonathan Swift
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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.
Jonathan Swift
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It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.
Jonathan Swift
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Come hither, all ye empty things, Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of Kings Who float upon the tide of state, Come hither, and behold your fate. Let pride be taught by this rebuke, How very mean a thing's a Duke From all his ill-got honours flung, Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.
Jonathan Swift
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If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.
Jonathan Swift
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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense are the three great sources of ill manners without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.
Jonathan Swift
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In all I wish, how happy should I be, Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee? So weak thou art that fools thy power despise And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
Jonathan Swift
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A footman may swear but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?
Jonathan Swift
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If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.
Jonathan Swift
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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.
Jonathan Swift