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She sits tormenting every guest,
Nor gives her tongue one moment's rest,
In phrases batter'd, stale, and trite,
Which modern ladies call polite.

— Jonathan Swift

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More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of a style.

I said the thing which was not. (For they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood.)

Gulliver's Travels (1726)

He made it a part of his religion never to say grace to his meat.

A Tale of a Tub (1704)

A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone.

All Jonathan Swift quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jonathan Swift (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.