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Quote by Jonathan Swift

“Rhetoric in serious discourses is like the flowers in corn; pleasing to those who come only for amusement, but prejudicial to him who would reap profit from it.”

Quote by Jonathan Swift

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Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift, born on November 30, 1667, and died on October 19, 1745, was an Irish writer, satirist, and politician, renowned for his satirical works. more

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Book:Tale of a tub. Battle of the books. A discourse concerning the mechancial operation of the spirit. Abstract of the history of England ... Letters ... Poems ascribed to Swift
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“There is no talent so useful toward rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of men, and in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence.”

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Book:The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author
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“Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.”

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Book:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ...: With Notes, Historical and Critical
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“It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us; it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.”

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Book:Works: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers Not Hitherto Published
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