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Perverseness is your whole defence.

Jonathan Swift

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
Don’t set your wit against a child.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Children One Liner
Cruel people are ever cowards in emergency.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Coward Cruelty People
Argument is the worst sort of conversation.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Argument Conversation One Liner Worst
A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Madness Place Price Sold
Vision is seeing the invisible.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Invisible One Liner Vision
Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Bad Flattery Flirty Greatness Offend Praise Yourself
It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of the spider.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Insect Life Live Misery
And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Best Conversation Reason Rule
Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Devil Father Greatness Himself Improvement Invention Lost Reputation
One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Ability Enemy Friendship Goodness Hurt Oneself
The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Cut Desire Need Ourselves Shoes System
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
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
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Government Meaning Politics Reason Slavery
The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Fly Kind Man Thinking
Live every day as your last, because one of these days, it will be.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Day Death Inspirational Live Yourself
When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Alive Book Myself Reading Talk
I’m as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Age Myself Old
Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Fake Philosophy Truth
I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Greatness Man Morning Success Worth
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Himself Man Reason
The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Best Doctor Happiness Quiet
If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Advice Fall Food Taste Yourself
No man will take counsel, but every man will take money. Therefore, money is better than counsel.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Better Man Money
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
Everyone desires long life, not one old age.
JONATHAN SWIFT

Age Desire Life Old Oneself

Perverseness is your whole defence.

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Perverseness is your whole defence.

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