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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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A wise man will find us to be rogues by our faces.
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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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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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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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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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Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy.
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What religion is he of? Why, he is an Anythingarian.
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This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk.
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Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavor to convict her Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she's right She may then grow wise for spite.
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Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
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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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I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water.
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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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Praise is the daughter of present power.
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In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man uncapable of holding any public station for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence.
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My Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.
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I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.
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An atheist has got one point beyond the devil.
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Rebukes are easy from our betters, From men of quality and letters But when low dunces will affront, What man alive can stand the brunt?
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Two women seldom grow intimate but at the expense of a third person.
Jonathan Swift