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Jonathan Swift
136 quotes
“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The latter part of a wise man’s life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because he that would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a multitude, will convince others the more, as he appears convinced himself.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king or a good ministry; for which reason Courts are so overrun with politics.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not of.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age…”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No wise man ever wished to be younger.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The two maxims of any great man at court are always to keep his countenance and never to keep his word.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is taller by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And he gave it for his opinion, that whosoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I said the thing which was not. (For they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood.)”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poor Nations are hungry, and rich Nations are proud, and Pride and Hunger will ever be at Variance.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a maxim among lawyers that whatever hath been done before may be done again, and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions, and the judges never fail of directing them accordingly.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As learned commentators view In Homer more than Homer knew.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So geographers, in Afric maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er unhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hobbes clearly proves that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So, naturalists observe, a flea Hath smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bit 'em; And so proceed ad infinitum. Thus every poet, in his kind, Is bit by him that comes behind.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A penny for your thoughts.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sight of you is good for sore eyes.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'Tis as cheap sitting as standing.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hate nobody: I am in charity with the world.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She's no chicken; she's on the wrong side of thirty, if she be a day.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She looks as if butter wou'dn't melt in her mouth.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If it had been a bear it would have bit you.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She wears her clothes, as if they were thrown on her with a pitchfork.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I mean you lie—under a mistake.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lord M. What religion is he of? Lord Sp. Why, he is an Anythingarian.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That's as well said, as if I had said it myself.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You must take the will for the deed.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives.”
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) said by 1745 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source