"I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he shewed as a pattern to encourage purchasers."
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Quote collection
Jonathan Swift quotes (page 20 of 22)
433 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Silks, velvets, calicoes, and the whole lexicon of female fopperies."
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"When a man of genius appears in the world, it is immediately recognized by the fact that all the blockheads join forces against him."
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"There is no talent so useful toward rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of men, and in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence."
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"Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please; But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex."
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"I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own; where the law hath not been able to find an expedient."
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"God hath intended our passions to prevail over reason."
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"The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men in the course of virtue, but seldom or ever reclaims the vicious."
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"Desponding Phyllis was endu'd With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, She trembled when a Man drew near; Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: If o'er against her you were plac'd She durst not look above your Waist"
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"The most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study."
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"I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be called to it, that by your great and frequent urgency you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels, with directions to hire some young gentleman of either university to put them in order, and correct the style, as my cousin Dampier did, by my advice, in his book called "A Voyage round the world.""
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"She 's no chicken; she 's on the wrong side of thirty, if she be a day."
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"When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name."
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"I with borrow'd silver shine, What you see is none of mine. First I show you but a quarter, Like the bow that guards the Tartar: Then the half, and then the whole, Ever dancing round the pole."
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"From not the gravest of Divines, Accept for once some serious Lines."
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"With a whirl of thought oppressed I sink from reverie to rest. An horrid vision seized my head, I saw the graves give up their dead."
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"Apollo was held the god of physic and sender of disease. Both were originally the same trade, and still continue."
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"Careful observers may foretell the hour (By sure prognostics) when to dread a show'r. While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more."
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"If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time."
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"Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavor to convict her; Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she's right; She may then grow wise for spite."
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