Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/388

382 ; so good thoughts, owned by a plagiary, bring him more shame than his own ill ones. When a poor thief appears in rich garments, we immediately know they are none of his own.

Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provisions of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.

The most positive men are the most credulous; since they most believe themselves, and advise most with their falsest flatterer, and worst enemy, their own self-love.

Get your enemies to read your works, in order to mend them; for your friend is so much your second self, that he will judge too like you.

Women use lovers as they do cards; they play with them awhile, and when they have got all they can by them, throw them away, call for new ones, and then perhaps lose by the new ones all they got by the old ones.

Honour in a woman's mouth, like an oath in the mouth of a gamester, is ever still most used, as their truth is most questioned.

Women, as they are like riddles, in being unintelligible, so generally resemble them in this, that they please us no longer when once we know them. LX. A