Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) was an author and a clergyman best remembered for his great sophisticated satire of human nature, Gulliver’s Travels. Playful, funny, and critical of his targets, Swift was prolific. His prose takes up fourteen volumes; his correspondence, three volumes; and his poetry, a one-thousand-page volume. Shorter works include A Tale of a Tub and A Modest Proposal. He is buried in Dublin with an epitaph of his own composition, indicating that he lies “where savage indignation can no longer tear his heart.”

When I Come to Be Old

Resolutions

by Jonathan Swift

Not to marry a young Woman.
Not to keep young Company unless they reely desire it.
Not to be peevish or morose, or suspicious.
Not to scorn present Ways, or Wits, or Fashions, or Men, or
    War, &c.
Not to be fond of Children, or let them come near me hardly.
Not to tell the same story over and over to the same People.
Not to be covetous.

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