"An atheist has got one point beyond the devil."
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Quote collection
Jonathan Swift quotes (page 19 of 22)
433 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath."
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"When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones."
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"There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof, I hope, there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am not understood, it shall be concluded, that something very useful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentence is printed in a different character, shall be judged to contain something extraordinary either or wit of sublime."
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""Lawyers Are": Those whose interests and abilities lie in perverting, confounding and eluding the law."
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"Surely mortal man is a broomstick!"
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"The more careless, the more modish."
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"Brutes find out where their talents lie; a bear will not attempt to fly."
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"Atlas, we read in ancient song, Was so exceeding tall and strong, He bore the skies upon his back, Just as the pedler does his pack; But, as the pedler overpress'd Unloads upon a stall to rest, Or, when he can no longer stand, Desires a friend to lend a hand, So Atlas, lest the ponderous spheres Should sink, and fall about his ears, Got Hercules to bear the pile, That he might sit and rest awhile."
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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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"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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"Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind."
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"I am convinced that if the virtuosi could once find out a world in the moon, with a passage to it, our women would wear nothing but what directly came from thence."
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"A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious and low."
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"I row after health like a waterman."
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"This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk."
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"Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow."
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"For want of a block, man will stumble at a straw."
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"I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water."
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"Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king or a good ministry; for which reason Courts are so overrun with politics."
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