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Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation td posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.

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
Behave
Glad
Laments
Relation
Omissions
Consider
Omission
Writer
Authorship
Books
Lament
Book
Posterity
Would
Finds

More quotes by 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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The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
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A jargon form'd from the lost language, wit, Confounded in that Babel of the pit Form'd by diseased conceptions, weak and wild, Sick lust of souls, and an abortive child Born between whores and fops, by lewd compacts, Before the play, or else between the acts Nor wonder, if from such polluted minds Should spring such short and transitory kinds.
Jonathan Swift
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Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.
Jonathan Swift
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If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.
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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For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door
Jonathan Swift
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Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
Jonathan Swift
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He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
Jonathan Swift
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... the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion ... that is to say all those who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers.
Jonathan Swift
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Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
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My horses understand me tolerably well I converse with them at least four hours every day. They are strangers to bridle or saddle they live in great amity with me, and friendship of each other.
Jonathan Swift
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You must take the will for the deed.
Jonathan Swift
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A wise man will find us to be rogues by our faces.
Jonathan Swift
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Real vision is the ability to see the invisible.
Jonathan Swift
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I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
Jonathan Swift
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The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.
Jonathan Swift
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If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.
Jonathan Swift
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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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With a whirl of thought oppressed I sink from reverie to rest. An horrid vision seized my head, I saw the graves give up their dead.
Jonathan Swift