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Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.

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
May
Men
Falsehood
Sober
Caught
Lies
Wise
Lying

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

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Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.
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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.
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Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !
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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.
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My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire I was the Third of five Sons.
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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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Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.
Jonathan Swift
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I am of the level with common Astrologers who, with an old paltry cant, and a few pot-hooks for planets to amuse the vulgar, have too long been suffered to abuse the world.
Jonathan Swift
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Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.
Jonathan Swift
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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.
Jonathan Swift
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A fig for your bill of fare show me your bill of company.
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Words are but wind and learning is nothing but words ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
Jonathan Swift
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Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.
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A maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith.
Jonathan Swift
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All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.
Jonathan Swift
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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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No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before.
Jonathan Swift
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All Pretences of foretelling by Astrology, are Deceits for this manifest Reason, because the Wise and Learned, who can only judge whether there be any Truth in this Science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise it and none but the poor ignorant Vulgar give it any Credit.
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Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
Jonathan Swift
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The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age but that of a good one will not reform it.
Jonathan Swift