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It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and malice together, because it gives his answerer double work.

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
Together
Employ
Giving
Malice
Work
Controversy
Unfair
Double
Ignorance
Writer
Gives

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The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.
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Whoe'er excels in what we prize, Appears a hero in our eyes Each girl, when pleased with what is taught, Will have the teacher in her thought. . . . . A blockhead with melodious voice, In boarding-schools may have his choice.
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Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.
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Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.
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Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.
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If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
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This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk.
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When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
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There's none so blind as they that won't see.
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Words are but wind and learning is nothing but words ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
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Come hither, all ye empty things, Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of Kings Who float upon the tide of state, Come hither, and behold your fate. Let pride be taught by this rebuke, How very mean a thing's a Duke From all his ill-got honours flung, Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.
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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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Blot out, correct, insert, refine, enlarge, diminish, interline. Be mindful, when invention fails. To scratch your head and bite your nails.
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Under the rose, since here are none but friends, To own the truth we have some private ends.
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Two women seldom grow intimate but at the expense of a third person.
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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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It is likewise to be observed that this society hath a peculiar chant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply.
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One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
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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
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It is an uncontrolled truth, that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them.
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