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The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
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
Little
Firsts
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Springs
Mean
Rivers
Great
Spring
Like
Events
Often
Littles
More quotes by Jonathan Swift
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.
Jonathan Swift
The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
Jonathan Swift
If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
Jonathan Swift
I row after health like a waterman.
Jonathan Swift
Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
Jonathan Swift
Cruel people are ever cowards in emergency.
Jonathan Swift
Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.
Jonathan Swift
Books, the children of the brain.
Jonathan Swift
Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.
Jonathan Swift
All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.
Jonathan Swift
Fond of those hives where folly reigns, And cards and scandal are the chains, Where the pert virgin slights a name, And scorns to redden into shame.
Jonathan Swift
We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same.
Jonathan Swift
Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.
Jonathan Swift
My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.
Jonathan Swift
Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
Jonathan Swift
One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
Jonathan Swift
Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
Jonathan Swift
It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be: and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.
Jonathan Swift
Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
Jonathan Swift
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
