Quote

So geographers, in Africa maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er uninhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns

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
Maps
Africa
Geographers
Fill
Uninhabitable
Pictures
Downs
Towns
Savage
Place
Elephants
Savages
Gaps

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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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I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either.
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It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
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Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.
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Fond of those hives where folly reigns, And cards and scandal are the chains, Where the pert virgin slights a name, And scorns to redden into shame.
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And, is not Virtue in Mankind The Nutriment that feeds the Mind?
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Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
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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.
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I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.
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The two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
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I am of the level with common Astrologers who, with an old paltry cant, and a few pot-hooks for planets to amuse the vulgar, have too long been suffered to abuse the world.
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Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.
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There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
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May you live all the days of your life.
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A maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith.
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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.
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Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.
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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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