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I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.

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
Anything
Giving
Spade
Spades
Leave
Names
Call
Give

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

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An atheist has got one point beyond the devil.
Jonathan Swift
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Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?
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For, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition: that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
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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.
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The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.
Jonathan Swift
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Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.
Jonathan Swift
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It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.
Jonathan Swift
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It often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it.
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Ingratitude is amongst them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus that whoever makes ill-returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of the mankind, from where he has received no obligations and therefore such man is not fit to live.
Jonathan Swift
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A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious and low.
Jonathan Swift
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A true critic, in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones.
Jonathan Swift
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I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water.
Jonathan Swift
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As love without esteem is capricious and volatile esteem without love is languid and cold.
Jonathan Swift
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Cruel people are ever cowards in emergency.
Jonathan Swift
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Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.
Jonathan Swift
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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.
Jonathan Swift
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Everyone desires long life, not one old age.
Jonathan Swift
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I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either.
Jonathan Swift
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Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
Jonathan Swift
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Principally I hate and detest that animal called man although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.
Jonathan Swift