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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
Beast
Wild
Talking
Nothing
Men
Dreaded
Beasts

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My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.
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The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.
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Come, agree, the law's costly.
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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.
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Coffee makes us severe, and grave and philosophical.
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Real vision is the ability to see the invisible.
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That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.
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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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For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door
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In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man uncapable of holding any public station for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence.
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Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
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For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
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Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex.
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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.
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Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?
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I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
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Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
Jonathan Swift
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The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
Jonathan Swift
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All Pretences of foretelling by Astrology, are Deceits for this manifest Reason, because the Wise and Learned, who can only judge whether there be any Truth in this Science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise it and none but the poor ignorant Vulgar give it any Credit.
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Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
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