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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.

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
Imagine
Provision
Age
Expense
Cannot
Expenses
Made
Wit
Ages
Former
Succeed
Furnish
Sort
Succeeding

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She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitchfork.
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If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels.
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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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They say fish should swim thrice * * * first it should swim in the sea (do you mind me?) then it should swim in butter, and at last, sirrah, it should swim in good claret.
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Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination.
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A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
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Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !
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Real vision is the ability to see the invisible.
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Ale is meat, drink and cloth it will make a cat speak and a wise man dumb.
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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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This is every cook's opinion - no savory dish without an onion, but lest your kissing should be spoiled your onions must be fully boiled.
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You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
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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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The system of morality to be gathered from the ancient sages falls very short of that delivered in the gospel.
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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.
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For poetry, he's past his prime, He takes an hour to find a rhyme His fire is out, his wit decayed, His fancy sunk, his muse a jade. I'd have him throw away his pen, But there's no talking to some men.
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What religion is he of? Why, he is an Anythingarian.
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Wise people are never less alone than when they are alone.
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Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
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By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.
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