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Unjustly poets we asperse: Truth shines the brighter clad in verse, And all the fictions they pursue Do but insinuate what is true.

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
Fiction
Verse
True
Shines
Truth
Brighter
Verses
Poets
Insinuate
Pursue
Unjustly
Shining
Clad
Poet
Fictions

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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.
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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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I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
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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 can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own where the law hath not been able to find an expedient.
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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.
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Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.
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Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.
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A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.
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Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.
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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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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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Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
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Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline.
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Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.
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Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.
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The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
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By the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England.
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Your onions should be thoroughly boiled.
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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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