Quote

Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.

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
Story
Subject
Frequent
Values
Telling
Defects
Two
Gift
Repetition
Stories
Soon
Shift
Need
Subjects
Exhausted
Needs
Ought
Frequently
Good
Memories
Whoever
Company
Memory
Unavoidable

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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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My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.
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It often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it.
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Triumphant Tories, and desponding Whigs, Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.
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I row after health like a waterman.
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I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
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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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A forward critic often dupes us With sham quotations peri hupsos, And if we have not read Longinus, Will magisterially outshine us. Then, lest with Greek he over-run ye, Procure the book for love or money, Translated from Boileau's translation, And quote quotation on quotation.
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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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Unjustly poets we asperse: Truth shines the brighter clad in verse, And all the fictions they pursue Do but insinuate what is true.
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Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.
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Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?
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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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I am of the level with common Astrologers who, with an old paltry cant, and a few pot-hooks for planets to amuse the vulgar, have too long been suffered to abuse the world.
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Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
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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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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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111 company is like a dog, who dirts those most whom he loves best.
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We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same.
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Vision is seeing the invisible.
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