98 Quotes & Sayings By Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric celebrated for his biting wit, satirical verse, and for the role his writings played in the development of satire and the genre of the pamphlet. He is known for such works as Gulliver's Travels (1726), A Modest Proposal (1729) and A Tale of a Tub (1704). He also wrote many poems. His work "The Battle of the Books" (England, 1713) is one of the earliest statements of the concept of literary canon. The poem is written in an epic style reminiscent of Homer. It describes a quest to find the best poem that has ever been written. The poem contains many allusions to classical mythology. The poem begins with "A Song to David". Swift suggests that there are too many books in the world Read more

He then goes on to list several examples of what he considers bad poetry, including Shakespeare's play "Henry VI, Part 2". He next mentions Pope's Iliad and Odyssey as examples of good poetry. He finishes his list with The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope as the best book ever written.

May you live every day of your life.
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May you live every day of your life. Jonathan Swift
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but...
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We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. Jonathan Swift
The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his...
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The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting. Jonathan Swift
That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of...
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That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy. Jonathan Swift
Books, the children of the brain.
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Books, the children of the brain. Jonathan Swift
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He asked me, "what were the usual causes or motives that made one country go to war with another?" I answered "they were innumerable; but I should only mention a few of the chief. Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they have land or people enough to govern; sometimes the corruption of ministers, who engage their master in a war, in order to stifle or divert the clamour of the subjects against their evil administration. Difference in opinions has cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire: what is the best colour for a coat, whether black, white, red, or gray: and whether it should be long or short, narrow or wide, dirty or clean; with many more. Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long a continuance, especially if it be in things indifferent. . Jonathan Swift
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out...
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It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into. Jonathan Swift
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And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. Jonathan Swift
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He likewise directed, “that every senator in the great council of a nation, after he had delivered his opinion, and argued in the defence of it, should be obliged to give his vote directly contrary; because if that were done, the result would infallibly terminate in the good of the public. Jonathan Swift
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If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time. Jonathan Swift
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Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. Jonathan Swift
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There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof Ihope there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am notunderstood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profoundis couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentenceis printed in a different character shall be judged to contain somethingextraordinary either of wit or sublime. Jonathan Swift
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I have one word to say upon the subject of profound writers, who are grown very numerous of late; and I know very well the judicious world is resolved to list me in that number. I conceive therefore, as to the business of being profound, that it is with writers as with wells; a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there; and often, when there is nothing in the world at the bottom, besides dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and half under ground, it shall pass however for wondrous deep, upon no wiser a reason than because it is wondrous dark. Jonathan Swift
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Coffee makes us severe, and grave and philosophical. Jonathan Swift
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Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead. Jonathan Swift
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He was a bold man that first ate an oyster. Jonathan Swift
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He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting “it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.” His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: “My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself, ” continued the king, “who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth. Jonathan Swift
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They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. Jonathan Swift
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Gulliver describes a royal personage inspiring awe among the tiny Lilliputians because he was taller than his brethren by the breadth of a human fingernail. Jonathan Swift
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Take a strict view of their excrements, and, from the colour, the odour, the taste, the consistence, the crudeness or maturity of digestion, form a judgment of their thoughts and designs; because men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they are at stool... Jonathan Swift
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Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. Jonathan Swift
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Judges.. are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing any thing unbecoming their nature in office. Jonathan Swift
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Every dog must have his day. Jonathan Swift
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Here commences a new dominion acquired with a title by divine right.   Ships are sent with the first opportunity; the natives driven out or destroyed; their princes tortured to discover their gold; a free license given to all acts of inhumanity and lust, the earth reeking with the blood of its inhabitants: and this execrable crew of butchers, employed in so pious an expedition, is a modern colony, sent to convert and civilize an idolatrous and barbarous people! . Jonathan Swift
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I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout. Jonathan Swift
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I replied that England (the dear place of my nativity) was computed to produce three times the quantity of food, more than its inhabitants are able to consume, .. But, in order to feed the luxury and intemperance of the males, and the vanity of the females, we sent away the greatest part of our necessary things to other countries, from whence in return we brought the materials of diseases, folly, and vice, to spend among ourselves. Hence it follows of necessity that vast numbers of our people are compelled to seek their livelihood by begging, robbing, stealing, cheating, pimping, forswearing, flattering, suborning, forging, gaming, lying, fawning, hectoring, voting, scribbling, freethinking, . Jonathan Swift
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But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth. Jonathan Swift
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When the world has once begun to use us ill, it afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony, as men do to a whore. Jonathan Swift
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Yet, Malice never was his Aim;He lash'd the Vice but spar'd the Name. No individual could resent, Where thousands equally were meant. His Satry points at no Defect, But what all Mortals may correct... Verses on the death of Dr Swift Jonathan Swift
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As learnèd commentators view In Homer more than Homer knew. Jonathan Swift
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I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed. Jonathan Swift
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That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken. Jonathan Swift
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We of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking. Jonathan Swift
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For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the flesh being of too tender a consistence to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it. Jonathan Swift
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These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critic: that he is a discoverer and collector of writers’ faults. Which may be farther put beyond dispute by the following demonstration: that whoever will examine the writings in all kinds, wherewith this ancient sect has honoured the world, shall immediately find, from the whole thread and tenor of them, that the ideas of the authors have been altogether conversant and taken up with the faults and blemishes, and oversights, and mistakes of other writers; and let the subject treated on be whatever it will, their imaginations are so entirely possessed and replete with the defects of other pens, that the very quintessence of what is bad does of necessity distil into their own, by which means the whole appears to be nothing else but an abstract of the criticisms themselves have made. Jonathan Swift
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He put this engine [a silver pocket watch] into our ears, which made an incessant noise, like that of a water-mill: and we conjecture it is either some unknown animal, or the god that he worships; but we are more inclined to the latter opinion, because he assured us, (if we understood him right, for he expressed himself very imperfectly) that he seldom did any thing without consulting it. He called it his oracle, and said, it pointed out the time for every action of his life. Jonathan Swift
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When the world has once begun to use us ill it afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony as men do to a whore. Jonathan Swift
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Dignity high station or great riches are in some sort necessary to old men in order to keep the younger at a distance who are otherwise too apt to insult them upon the score of their age. Jonathan Swift
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Zsa Zsa Gabor when asked which of the Gabor women was the oldest said "She'll never admit it but I believe it is Mama." When men grow virtuous in their old age they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings. Jonathan Swift
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No wise man ever wished to be younger. Jonathan Swift
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She looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Jonathan Swift
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That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy. Jonathan Swift
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There's none so blind as they that won't see. Jonathan Swift
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I won't quarrel with my bread and butter. Jonathan Swift
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The first springs of great events like those of great rivers are often mean and little. Jonathan Swift
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She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on her with a pitchfork. Jonathan Swift
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We are so fond of each other because our ailments are the same. Jonathan Swift
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Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives. Jonathan Swift
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An excuse is a lie guarded. Jonathan Swift
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A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong which is but saying ... that he is wiser today than yesterday. Jonathan Swift
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There is nothing in this world constant but inconstancy. Jonathan Swift
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They say fingers were made before forks and hands before knives. Jonathan Swift
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111 company is like a dog who dirts those most whom he loves best. Jonathan Swift
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When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. Jonathan Swift
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What some invent the rest enlarge. Jonathan Swift
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I heard the little bird say so. Jonathan Swift
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Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing. Jonathan Swift
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When the world has once begun to use us ill and afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony as men do to a whore. Jonathan Swift
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May you live all the days of your life. Jonathan Swift
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Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company. Jonathan Swift
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Possession they say is eleven points of the law. Jonathan Swift
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Tis an old maxim in the schools That flattery's the food of fools - Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit. Jonathan Swift
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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 by water. Jonathan Swift
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Promise and pie-crust are made to be broken. Jonathan Swift
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I know Sir John will go though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs. Jonathan Swift
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When I am reading a book whether wise or silly it seems to me to be alive and talking to me. Jonathan Swift
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Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want. Jonathan Swift
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Brutes find out where their talents lie a bear will not attempt to fly. Jonathan Swift
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What some invent the rest enlarge. Jonathan Swift
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And he gave it for his opinion that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together. Jonathan Swift
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Very few men properly speaking live at present but are providing to live another time. Jonathan Swift
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Usually speaking the worst-bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad. Jonathan Swift
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When men grow virtuous in their old age they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings. Jonathan Swift
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The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes. Jonathan Swift
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Most sorts of diversion in men children and other animals are in imitation of fighting. Jonathan Swift
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There was all the world and his wife. Jonathan Swift
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Proper words in proper places make the true definition of a style. Jonathan Swift
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Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly. Jonathan Swift
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Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes. Jonathan Swift
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Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of. Jonathan Swift
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Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old. Jonathan Swift
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No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience. Jonathan Swift
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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. Jonathan Swift
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I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning. Jonathan Swift
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When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him. Jonathan Swift
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Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind. Jonathan Swift
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Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken. Jonathan Swift
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We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. Jonathan Swift
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I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution. Jonathan Swift
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The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman. Jonathan Swift
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Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together Let none but Him who rules the thunder Put this man and woman asunder. Jonathan Swift
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Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent. Jonathan Swift
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Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. Jonathan Swift
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Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room. Jonathan Swift
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Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions. Jonathan Swift
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For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery. Jonathan Swift
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A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart. Jonathan Swift