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One principal object of good-breeding is to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men, our superiors, our equals, and those below us.

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
Objects
Behaviour
Three
Suit
Good
Principal
Men
Superiors
Suits
Several
Object
Breeding
Degrees
Equals

More quotes by 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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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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The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.
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Whence proceeds this weight we lay On what detracting people say? Their utmost malice cannot make Your head, or tooth, or finger ache Nor spoil your shapes, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place.
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The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.
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Coffee makes us severe, and grave and philosophical.
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Ingratitude is amongst them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus that whoever makes ill-returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of the mankind, from where he has received no obligations and therefore such man is not fit to live.
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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.
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Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
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The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
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War: that mad game the world so loves to play.
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A fig for your bill of fare show me your bill of company.
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She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body.
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God hath intended our passions to prevail over reason.
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It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.
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I hate nobody: I am in charity with the world.
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So geographers, in Africa maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er uninhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns
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I am convinced that if the virtuosi could once find out a world in the moon, with a passage to it, our women would wear nothing but what directly came from thence.
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Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.
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Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
Jonathan Swift