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I would rather be a freeman among slaves than a slave among freemen.

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
Freemen
Freeman
Slaves
Slave
Among
Rather
Freedom
Would

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God hath intended our passions to prevail over reason.
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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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I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
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For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through every corner of nature the difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
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It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.
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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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An atheist has got one point beyond the devil.
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An intelligent person should put money in the beginning, but not in heart
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The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
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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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She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body.
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Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
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Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.
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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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Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.
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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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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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Desponding Phyllis was endu'd With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, She trembled when a Man drew near Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: If o'er against her you were plac'd She durst not look above your Waist
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And, is not Virtue in Mankind The Nutriment that feeds the Mind?
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Hail, follow, well met, All dirty and wet: Find out, if you can, Who's master, who's man.
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