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What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he? But rather than they should excel, He'd wish his rivals all in Hell.

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
Write
Rivals
Wells
Grieving
Well
Poet
Writing
Poetry
Would
Brother
Hell
Rather
Excel
Wish
Grieve

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You cannot reason a person out of something they were not reasoned into.
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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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Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
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There is nothing in this world constant, but inconstancy.
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Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.
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You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
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I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.
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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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My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.
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Praise is the daughter of present power.
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I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
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When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.
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Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
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The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.
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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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And, is not Virtue in Mankind The Nutriment that feeds the Mind?
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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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111 company is like a dog, who dirts those most whom he loves best.
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Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
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The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.
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