Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

— Jonathan Swift

Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.

— Jonathan Swift

Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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.

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.

— Jonathan Swift

There's none so blind as they that won't see.

— Jonathan Swift

As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.

— Jonathan Swift

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.

— Jonathan Swift

Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches to conceive how others can be in want.

— Jonathan Swift

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.

— Jonathan Swift

I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.

— Jonathan Swift

Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives.

— Jonathan Swift

One of the very best rules of conversation is to never, say anything which any of the company wish had been left unsaid.

— Jonathan Swift

The most positive men are the most credulous.

— Jonathan Swift

For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.

— Jonathan Swift

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.

— Jonathan Swift

We are so fond of one another because our ailments are the same.

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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.

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

Pretense is the overrating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.

— Jonathan Swift

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.

— Jonathan Swift

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.

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

Happiness is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

What some people invent the rest enlarge.

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

— Jonathan Swift

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.

— Jonathan Swift

Come, agree, the law's costly.

— Jonathan Swift

May you live all the days of your life.

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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.

— Jonathan Swift

Observation is an old man's memory.

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

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.

— Jonathan Swift

Don't set your wit against a child.

— Jonathan Swift

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.

— Jonathan Swift

The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance and never to keep his work.

— Jonathan Swift

Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.

— Jonathan Swift

It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally 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.

— Jonathan Swift

Promises and pie crusts are made to be broken.

— Jonathan Swift

It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.

— Jonathan Swift

Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.

— Jonathan Swift

If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.

— Jonathan Swift

It was a bold person that first ate an oyster.

— Jonathan Swift

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.

— Jonathan Swift

Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own; can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book; convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.

— Jonathan Swift

He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.

— Jonathan Swift

But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

— Jonathan Swift

Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps 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

The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.

— Jonathan Swift

A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?

— Jonathan Swift

Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.

— Jonathan Swift

Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.

— Jonathan Swift

It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.

— Jonathan Swift

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

— Jonathan Swift

Whoever wishes to win in this game must have patience and money, since the values are so little constant and the rumors so little founded on truth Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

— Jonathan Swift

O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee.

— Jonathan Swift

Style may defined as the proper words in the proper places.

— Jonathan Swift

Promises and Pye-Crusts, are made to be broken.

— Jonathan Swift

No length of time can make you quit Honour and virtue, sense and wit, Thus you may still be young to me, While I can better hear than see ; Oh, ne'er may fortune show her spite,To make me deaf, and mend my sight.

— Jonathan Swift

If a Child be sick, give it whatever it wants to eat or drink, although particularly forbid by the Doctor: For what we long for in Sickness, will do us good; and throw the Physick out of the Window; the Child will love you the better; but bid it not tell. Do the same to your Lady when she longs for anything in Sickness, and engage it will do her good.

— Jonathan Swift

Who, by disgraces or ill fortune sunk, Feels not his soul enlivened when he's drunk?

— Jonathan Swift

I have now lost my barrier between me and death; God grant I may live to be as well prepared for it, as I confidently believe her to have been! If the way to Heaven be through piety, truth, justice and charity, she is there.

— Jonathan Swift

Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old.

— Jonathan Swift

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

— Jonathan Swift

He showed me his bill of fare to tempt me to dine with him; said I, I value not your bill of fare, give me your bill of company.

— Jonathan Swift

Conversation is but carving! / Give no more to every guest / Than he’s able to digest.

— Jonathan Swift

A soldier is a yahoo hired to kill in cold blood as many of his own species, who have never offended him, as possibly he can.

— Jonathan Swift

How haughtily he cocks his nose, / To tell what every schoolboy knows.

— Jonathan Swift