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There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a talking man having nothing to say.

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
Wild
Talking
Nothing
Men
Dreaded
Beasts
Beast

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

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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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O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee.
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My horses understand me tolerably well I converse with them at least four hours every day. They are strangers to bridle or saddle they live in great amity with me, and friendship of each other.
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There is nothing in this world constant, but inconstancy.
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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.
Jonathan Swift
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The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.
Jonathan Swift
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Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.
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Words are but wind and learning is nothing but words ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
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When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
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There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them.
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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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What they do in heaven we are ignorant of what they do not do we are told expressly.
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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.
Jonathan Swift
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The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
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Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.
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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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Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
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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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.
Jonathan Swift
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It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be: and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.
Jonathan Swift