I have seen the dullest men aiming at wit, and others with as little pretensions affecting politeness in manners and discourse.
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Quotes by Jonathan Swift
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.
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in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
Reason is a very light rider and easily shook off.
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in Quotes & Aphorisms (Books)
The affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.
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Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects, frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that whoever values this gift in himself has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.
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I count it a great error to count upon the genius of a nation as a standing argument in all ages.
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in Quotes & Aphorisms (Life)
There is no talent so useful towards rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than discretion, a species of lower prudence.
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Though we cannot prolong the period of a commonwealth beyond the decree of heaven, or the date of its nature, any more than human life beyond the strength of the seminal virtue, yet we may manage a sickly constitution, and preserve a strong one.
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in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
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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Should any man argue that a physician understands his own art best, and therefore, although he should prescribe poison to all his patients, he cannot be justly punished, but is answerable only to God?
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