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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
Sober
Caught
Lies
Wise
Lying
May
Men
Falsehood

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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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There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a talking man having nothing to say.
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Surely mortal man is a broomstick!
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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.
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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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You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday
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A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious and low.
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I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
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Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.
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If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.
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For poetry, he's past his prime, He takes an hour to find a rhyme His fire is out, his wit decayed, His fancy sunk, his muse a jade. I'd have him throw away his pen, But there's no talking to some men.
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A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour.
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O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee.
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There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.
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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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Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe, how much it altered her person for the worse.
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Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired
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What religion is he of? Why, he is an Anythingarian.
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Everyone desires long life, not one old age.
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Desponding Phyllis was endu'd With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, She trembled when a Man drew near Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: If o'er against her you were plac'd She durst not look above your Waist
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