Quotes by Swift, Jonathan

"It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind."

Swift, Jonathan on death
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"We are so fond of one another because our ailments are the same."

Swift, Jonathan on disease   

"The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman."

Swift, Jonathan on doctors   

"She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitch folk."

Swift, Jonathan on dress   

"And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever 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."

Swift, Jonathan on ecology   

"One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good."

Swift, Jonathan on enemies
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"Pretense is the overrating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to."

Swift, Jonathan on exaggeration   

"I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contribute to our present misery, than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would contribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harvest, although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life."

Swift, Jonathan on famine   

"Your notions of friendship are new to me; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well know to whom I would give the first place in my friendship, but they are not in the way, I am condemned to another scene, and therefore I distribute it in pennyworths to those about me, and who displease me least, and should do the same to my fellow prisoners if I were condemned to a jail."

Swift, Jonathan on friends and friendship   

"Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires."

Swift, Jonathan on friends and friendship   

"When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

Swift, Jonathan on genius
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"The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier."

Swift, Jonathan on age and aging   

"No wise man ever wished to be younger."

Swift, Jonathan on age and aging
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"Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old."

Swift, Jonathan on age and aging   

"Better belly burst than good liquor be lost."

Swift, Jonathan on alcohol and alcoholism   

"Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping."

Swift, Jonathan on ambition   

"In church your grandsire cut his throat; to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my hearty vote to cut his throat before he married."

Swift, Jonathan on ancestry   

"Faith! he must make his stories shorter or change his comrades once a quarter."

Swift, Jonathan on anecdotes   

"I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning."

Swift, Jonathan on greatness   

"Happiness is a perpetual possession of being well deceived."

Swift, Jonathan on happiness   

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"What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly."

Swift, Jonathan on heaven
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"What some people invent the rest enlarge."

Swift, Jonathan on humor   

"Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age."

Swift, Jonathan on invention and inventor   

"Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age."

Swift, Jonathan on invention and inventor   

"All human race would be wits. And millions miss, for one that hits."

Swift, Jonathan on jokes and jokers   

"I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing."

Swift, Jonathan on kisses and kissing
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"I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are as slaves."

Swift, Jonathan on law and lawyers   

"Come, agree, the law's costly."

Swift, Jonathan on law suits   

"May you live all the days of your life."

Swift, Jonathan on life   

"Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as in books it is generally the worst sort of reading."

Swift, Jonathan on argument   

"As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold."

Swift, Jonathan on love
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"Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest."

Swift, Jonathan on manners   

"Observation is an old man's memory."

Swift, Jonathan on memory   

"Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly."

Swift, Jonathan on men   

"There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake."

Swift, Jonathan on mistakes   

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"A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart."

Swift, Jonathan on money   

"Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance."

Swift, Jonathan on nations   

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"Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with the public will convince them as he himself appears convinced."

Swift, Jonathan on optimism   

"Don't set your wit against a child."

Swift, Jonathan on parents and parenting   

"In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained, the professors appearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their senses; which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favorites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services, of instructing princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employment persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive; and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth."

Swift, Jonathan on politics