Quote

Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.

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
Two
Soon
Touches
Become
Lead
Evils
Look
Wall
Melancholy
Fancied
Looks
Ones
Imaginary
Indulging
Real
Face
Fancy
Agreeing
Something
Faces
Visible
Reflections
Make
Evil
Sees
Pencil
Like
Three
Reflection
Pencils

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Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex.
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That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.
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In church your grandsire cut his throat to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my hearty vote to cut his throat before he married.
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There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
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Hail fellow, well met.
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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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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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The system of morality to be gathered from the ancient sages falls very short of that delivered in the gospel.
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Careful observers may foretell the hour (By sure prognostics) when to dread a show'r. While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
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Had Windham possessed discretion in debate, or Sheridan in conduct, they might have ruled their age.
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Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
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For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
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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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I cannot imagine why we should be at the expense to furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former have made no sort of provision for ours.
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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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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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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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Conversation is but carving! Give no more to every guest Than he's able to digest.
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A chuck under the chin is worth two kisses.
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Cruel people are ever cowards in emergency.
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