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You must take the will for the deed.

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
Deed
Deeds
Take
Must

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

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In all I wish, how happy should I be, Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee? So weak thou art that fools thy power despise And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
Jonathan Swift
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Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
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I'm up and down and round about, Yet all the world can't find me out Though hundreds have employed their leisure, They never yet could find my measure.
Jonathan Swift
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My Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.
Jonathan Swift
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Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
Jonathan Swift
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There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.
Jonathan Swift
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Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
Jonathan Swift
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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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Whence proceeds this weight we lay On what detracting people say? Their utmost malice cannot make Your head, or tooth, or finger ache Nor spoil your shapes, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place.
Jonathan Swift
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Such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up.
Jonathan Swift
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There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of the world,--to despise it, to return the like, or to endeavor to live so as to avoid it the first of these is usually pretended, the last is almost impossible, the universal practice is for the second.
Jonathan Swift
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I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
Jonathan Swift
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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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Wise people are never less alone than when they are alone.
Jonathan Swift
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How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.
Jonathan Swift
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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense are the three great sources of ill manners without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.
Jonathan Swift
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Liberty of conscience is nowadays only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavoring to propagate that belief as much as they can.
Jonathan Swift
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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.
Jonathan Swift
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God hath intended our passions to prevail over reason.
Jonathan Swift
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Blot out, correct, insert, refine, enlarge, diminish, interline. Be mindful, when invention fails. To scratch your head and bite your nails.
Jonathan Swift