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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

It often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Believe Occasion Time Work
I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are as slaves.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Black Man People Purpose Slave Society Word
The best Maxim I know in this life is, to drink your Coffee when you can, and when you cannot, to be easy without it.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Best Coffee Easy Life Yourself
An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Goodness Reason Yourself
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

Accident Believe Fall Philosophy Universe
A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Head Heart Man Wisdom
Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Block Easy Greatness Himself Man Walk
You cannot reason a person out of something they were not reasoned into.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Fate Person Reason Yourself
Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Blessing Exception Innocence Power Protection
No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Age Experience Information Life Man Skills
Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with the public will convince them as he himself appears convinced.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Appearance Goodness Himself Positive Quality Talk
The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Fly Kind Man Thinking
It is the talent of human nature to run from one extreme to another.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Human Nature Oneself Talent
Don’t set your wit against a child.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Children One Liner
Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Hungry Nation Poor Pride Proud
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Man Myself See Shame Wickedness Wonder
We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Enough Hate Love Oneself Religion
Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Break Food Promise
Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Corruption Politics Understand Word
Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Fake Philosophy Truth
There’s none so blind as they that won’t see.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Blind Eyes See
How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Advice Expectation Kind Man Possible Warning
It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Hard Man Praise Vice Virtue
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Appearance Discover Face
It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of the spider.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Insect Life Live Misery
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.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Affect Betrayal Fake Man Truth
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.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Care Decision Kind Law Legal Man Reason Record

When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.

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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.

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