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Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.

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
Word
Twenties
Heaven
Seriously
Religion
Supposed
Sacraments
Atheism
Humour
Circumstances
Wit
Hell
Check
Wonderful
Checks
Taken
Twenty

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The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.
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As love without esteem is capricious and volatile esteem without love is languid and cold.
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They say fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives.
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Had Windham possessed discretion in debate, or Sheridan in conduct, they might have ruled their age.
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That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.
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There is nothing in this world constant, but inconstancy.
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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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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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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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I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
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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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Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
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Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.
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A lie is an excuse guarded
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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.
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Wise people are never less alone than when they are alone.
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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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You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday
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Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.
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Men of wit, learning and virtue might strike out every offensive or unbecoming passage from plays.
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