Quote

I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.

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
House
Qualities
Neighbours
Others
Useless
Inform
Fronts
Passengers
Good
Sun
Usefulness
Men
Front
Owner
Like
Quality
Neighbour
Within
Possessed
Serviceable
Known
Owners
Dial

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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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A forward critic often dupes us With sham quotations peri hupsos, And if we have not read Longinus, Will magisterially outshine us. Then, lest with Greek he over-run ye, Procure the book for love or money, Translated from Boileau's translation, And quote quotation on quotation.
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If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
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Though Diogenes lived in a tub, there might be, for aught I know, as much pride under his rags, as in the fine-spun garments of the divine Plato.
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If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
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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.
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Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
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Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.
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Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room.
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What religion is he of? Why, he is an Anythingarian.
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Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.
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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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Books, like men their authors, have no more than one wayofcoming intothe world, but there areten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.
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An intelligent person should put money in the beginning, but not in heart
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I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.
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Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.
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I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
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111 company is like a dog, who dirts those most whom he loves best.
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As love without esteem is capricious and volatile esteem without love is languid and cold.
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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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