"The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides."
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Quote collection
Jonathan Swift quotes (page 13 of 22)
433 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"It is an uncontrolled truth, that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them."
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"Just get the right syllable in the proper place."
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"It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and malice together, because it gives his answerer double work."
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"Such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up."
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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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"A poor spirit is poorer than a poor purse. A very few pounds a year would ease a man of the scandal of avarice."
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"Oh how our neighbour lifts his nose, To tell what every schoolboy knows."
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"Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies."
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"A maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith."
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"Great abilities, when employed as God directs, do but make the owners of them greater and more painful servants to their neighbors."
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"Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension."
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"There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them."
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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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"Fond of those hives where folly reigns, And cards and scandal are the chains, Where the pert virgin slights a name, And scorns to redden into shame."
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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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"A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?"
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"The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier."
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"When I am in danger of bursting, I will go and whisper among the reeds."
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"Every age might perhaps produce one or two geniuses, if they were not sunk under the censure and obloquy of plodding, servile, imitating pedants."
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