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It is an uncontrolled truth, that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them.

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
Men
Figure
Figures
Understood
Talent
Truth
Mistook
Ever
Uncontrolled
Made
Talents
Good
Ill

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By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.
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It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.
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A forward critic often dupes us With sham quotations peri hupsos, And if we have not read Longinus, Will magisterially outshine us. Then, lest with Greek he over-run ye, Procure the book for love or money, Translated from Boileau's translation, And quote quotation on quotation.
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Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
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Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
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He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.
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In church your grandsire cut his throat to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my hearty vote to cut his throat before he married.
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But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
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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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Whoe'er excels in what we prize, Appears a hero in our eyes Each girl, when pleased with what is taught, Will have the teacher in her thought. . . . . A blockhead with melodious voice, In boarding-schools may have his choice.
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The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
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An atheist has got one point beyond the devil.
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A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.
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If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
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All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.
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Conscience signifies that knowledge which a man hath of his own thoughts and actions and because, if a man judgeth fairly of his actions by comparing them with the law of God, his mind will approve or condemn him this knowledge or conscience may be both an accuser and a judge.
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A fig for your bill of fare show me your bill of company.
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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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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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I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.
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