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

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My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire I was the Third of five Sons.
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Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
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I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
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Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
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I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water.
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Everyone desires long life, not one old age.
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Perpetual aiming at wit is a very bad part of conversation. It is done to support a character: it generally fails it is a sort of insult on the company, and a restraint upon the speaker.
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You cannot reason a person out of something they were not reasoned into.
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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?
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Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.
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It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.
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Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.
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Conversation is but carving! Give no more to every guest Than he's able to digest.
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