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There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them.

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
Genius
Stand
Five
Age
United
Never
Men
Appear
World
Six

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I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
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Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.
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I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.
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Real vision is the ability to see the invisible.
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A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.
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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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Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
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This Day, whate'er the Fates decree Shall still be kept with Joy by me: This Day then, let us not be told, That you are sick, and I grown old
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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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The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age but that of a good one will not reform it.
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I shall be like that tree-I shall die at the top.
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If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste.
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Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
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I row after health like a waterman.
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The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.
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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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Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.
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She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body.
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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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You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
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