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2d1ab58
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May you live every day of your life.
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life
philosophy
wisdom
inspirational
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Jonathan Swift |
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055146c
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When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." [ ]" --
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stupidity
genius
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Jonathan Swift |
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d6e556a
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Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
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Jonathan Swift |
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43a7ca3
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We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
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inspirational
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Jonathan Swift |
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1fa442f
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Books, the children of the brain.
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Jonathan Swift |
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1213a9a
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I cannot but conclude that 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.
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Jonathan Swift |
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49e84f5
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Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.
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Jonathan Swift |
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fcb7ad3
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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.
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time
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Jonathan Swift |
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58ed23e
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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." --
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politics
humor
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Jonathan Swift |
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314ca21
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Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.
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Jonathan Swift |
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d0d66bd
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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.
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difference-of-opinions
religious-bigotry
transubstantiation
religious-violence
intolerance
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Jonathan Swift |
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3cdc3d1
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Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying
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Jonathan Swift |
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199e663
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a wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be young.
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Jonathan Swift |
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c937489
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This made me reflect, how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.
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Jonathan Swift |
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bc2a67f
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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.
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Jonathan Swift |
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2a38857
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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 i..
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Jonathan Swift |
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5bdcba7
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Ingratitude is amongst them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus; that whoever makes ill-returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of the mankind, from where he has received no obligations and therefore such man is not fit to live.
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Jonathan Swift |
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90ad142
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It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities, to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of decreeing accordingly.
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Jonathan Swift |
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f9edaf7
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I hid myself between two leaves of sorrel, and there discharged the necessities of nature.
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Jonathan Swift |
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ee20a56
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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..
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law
punishment
justice
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Jonathan Swift |
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e6dcc0d
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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 fricasie, or a ragoust.
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Jonathan Swift |
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e366cf3
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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...
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thought
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Jonathan Swift |
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05aa617
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So Geographers in Afric-maps With Savage-Pictures fill their Gaps;
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Jonathan Swift |
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7149cd7
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When parties in a state are violent, he offered a wonderful contrivance to reconcile them. The method is this: You take a hundred leaders of each party; you dispose them into couples of such whose heads are nearest of a size; then let two nice operators saw off the occiput of each couple at the same time, in such a manner that the brain may be equally divided. Let the occiputs, thus cut off, be interchanged, applying each to the head of his..
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Jonathan Swift |
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dd7876e
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I enjoyed perfect health of body, and tranquillity of mind; I did not feel the treachery or inconstancy of a friend, nor the injuries of a secret or open enemy. I had no occasion of bribing, flattering, or pimping, to procure the favour of any great man, or of his minion; I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression: here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune; no informer to watch my words and actions, or..
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Jonathan Swift |
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8bbd8b0
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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 ..
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human-nature
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Jonathan Swift |
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1086be7
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Opium is not so stupefying to many persons as an afternoon sermon.
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Jonathan Swift |
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f9d324c
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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..
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writers
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Jonathan Swift |
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cd0ee6e
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For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door.
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Jonathan Swift |
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b1eb238
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Whatever reader desires to have a thorough comprehension of an author's thoughts cannot take a better method than by putting himself into the circumstances and postures of life that the author was in upon every important passage as it flowed from his pen; for this will introduce a parity and strict correspondence of ideas between the reader and the author. Now, to assist the diligent reader in so delicate an affair, as far as brevity will p..
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Jonathan Swift |
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6514b88
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For instance, a crew of pirates are driven by a storm they know not whither; at length a boy discovers land from the topmast; they go on shore to rob and plunder, they see a harmless people, are entertained with kindness; they give the country a new name; they take formal possession of it for their king; they set up a rotten plank, or a stone, for a memorial; they murder two or three dozen of the natives, bring away a couple more, by force,..
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Jonathan Swift |
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cc03d13
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Based on Gulliver's descriptions of their behaviour, the King describes Europeans as "the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth."
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Jonathan Swift |
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abe46d9
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Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions.
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Jonathan Swift |
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b5ea3fa
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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.
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pride
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Jonathan Swift |
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890449e
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My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language; wherein I had a great facility, by the strength of my memory.
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Jonathan Swift |
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30c5f28
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I desired that the Senate of Rome might appear before me in one large chamber, and a modern representative, in counterview, in another. The first seemed to be an assembly of heroes and demi-gods; the other, a knot of pedlars, pick-pockets, highwaymen, and bullies.
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Jonathan Swift |
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cb092fa
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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."
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Jonathan Swift |
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28c6f79
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They have a notion, that when people are met together, a short silence does much improve conversation: this I found to be true; for during those little intermissions of talk, new ideas would arise in their minds, which very much enlivened the discourse.
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Jonathan Swift |
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35ab580
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I winked at my own littleness, as people do at their own faults.
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Jonathan Swift |
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27133f2
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As learned commentators view In Homer more than Homer knew.
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Jonathan Swift |
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19bd51f
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My little friend Grildrig; you have made a most admirable panegyrick 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 tolerabl..
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Jonathan Swift |
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c6d4d94
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But a Broom-stick, perhaps you will say, is an Emblem of a Tree standing on its Head; and pray what is Man but a topsy-turvy Creature? His Animal Faculties perpetually mounted on his Rational; his Head where his Heels should be, groveling on the Earth.
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Jonathan Swift |
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78bb261
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And I remember in frequent discourses with my master concerning the nature of manhood, in other parts of the world, having occasion to talk of lying and false representation... For he argued thus; that the use of speech was to make us understand one another, and to receive information of facts; now if any one said the thing which was not, these ends were defeated... ...he leaves me worse than in ignorance, for I am led to believe a thing bl..
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Jonathan Swift |
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390d747
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for they have no conception how a rational creature can be compelled, but only advised, or exhorted; because no person can disobey reason, without giving up his claim to be a rational creature.
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Jonathan Swift |