Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/385

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VARIOUS SUBJECTS.
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XXXV.

Dastardly men are like sorry horses, who have but just spirit and mettle enough left to be mischievous.

XXXVI.

Some people will never learn any thing, for this reason, because they understand every thing too soon.

XXXVII.

A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labour of the bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.

XXXVIII.

A man of business may talk of philosophy, a man who has none may practise it[1].

XXXIX.

There are some solitary wretches, who seem to have left the rest of mankind, only as Eve left Adam, to meet the devil in private.

XL.

The vanity of human life is, like a river, constantly passing away, and yet constantly coming on.

XLI.

I seldom see a noble building, or any great piece of magnificence and pomp, but I think, how little is all this to satisfy the ambition, or to fill the idea, of an immortal soul!

  1. The same sentiment occurs in a letter from Bolingbroke to Swift.
XLII. It