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Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in 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
Best
Men
Fewest
Bred
Uneasy
Whoever
Company
Makes
Persons

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Big-endians and small-endians.
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Perpetual aiming at wit is a very bad part of conversation. It is done to support a character: it generally fails it is a sort of insult on the company, and a restraint upon the speaker.
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Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.
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I'm up and down and round about, Yet all the world can't find me out Though hundreds have employed their leisure, They never yet could find my measure.
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O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee.
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There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.
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So, naturalists observe, a flea Hath smaller fleas that on him prey And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum.
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Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.
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Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
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God hath intended our passions to prevail over reason.
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For though, in nature, depth and height Are equally held infinite: In poetry, the height we know 'Tis only infinite below.
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If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.
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In men desire begets love, and in women love begets desire.
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Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
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But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
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Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with the public will convince them as he himself appears convinced.
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You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
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One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
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Books, like men their authors, have no more than one wayofcoming intothe world, but there areten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.
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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