Jonathan Swift Quotes

No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.

Jonathan Swift

• Honor
• Promise
• Regard
• Pretend
• Creditor

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• I get tired of stories that keep going and going and never get anywhere. It's like a promise that's never fulfilled. Stories need endings. Otherwise, they aren't really stories. Just pages.

  

  Ted Naifeh
  • Tired
  • Promise
  • Need

• Remember that the good angels do what they can to preserve men from sin and obtain God's honor. But they do not lose courage when men fail.

  

  Saint Ignatius
  • Good
  • God
  • Men

• During the course of my football and business careers, I have had the great honor of meeting and associating with many outstanding leaders.

  

  Bart Starr
  • Great
  • Business
  • Football

• We always knew how to honor fallen soldiers. They were killed for our sake, they went out on our mission. But how are we to mourn a random man killed in a terrorist attack while sitting in a cafe? How do you mourn a housewife who got on a bus and never returned?

  

  A. B. Yehoshua
  • Man
  • Honor
  • Random

• Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

  

  Abraham Lincoln
  • History
  • Light
  • Honor

• I've learned there's nothing wrong with being a little fussy. I used to pride myself on being low-maintenance - I wore it like a badge of honor.

  

  Becki Newton
  • Myself
  • Pride
  • Honor

• Essentially this promise before curse, this superiority of God's love in Christ, must come from the Bible.

  

  Walter Lang
  • God
  • Love
  • Promise

• We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present: unemployment, inflation... but we are attempting on a larger scale to fulfill the promise of America.

  

  Barbara Jordan
  • People
  • Trying
  • America

• Serving in Congress has been more than an honor; it has been one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life... It has been a wonderful ride. It has been a wonderful journey.

  

  J. C. Watts
  • Life
  • Journey
  • Honor

• Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I'll be right there with you as a citizen - inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

  

  Barack Obama
  • Good
  • America
  • Democracy

• Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.

  

  Edna St. Vincent Millay
  • Good
  • Advice
  • Promise

• The - I don't want to say older, but the more experienced I get, I treasure and I honor what I've done much more.

  

  Nadia Comaneci
  • Done
  • Want
  • Honor

• I have decorated soldiers for heroism before, and it was always such an honor to do it.

  

  Jack Keane
  • Honor
  • Soldiers
  • Heroism

• What could be more lonely than to be enveloped in silence, to be the last of your people to speak your native tongue, to have no way to pass on the wisdom of the elders, to anticipate the promise of the children. This tragic fate is indeed the plight of someone somewhere roughly every two weeks.

  

  Wade Davis
  • People
  • Children
  • Wisdom

• For me, it's an honor for the military to ask me to go to Iraq, Afghanistan, or GITMO. I'm happy to go.

  

  R. Lee Ermey
  • Happy
  • Military
  • Honor

• The honor I feel today being inducted into the Hall of Fame is beyond what words can describe. My thanks to the Hall of Fame committee, who saw fit to bestow this great honor upon me today.

  

  Hank Stram
  • Great
  • Today
  • Words

• If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.

  

  Napoleon Bonaparte
  • World
  • Success
  • Wish

• Here was my city, immense, overpowering, flooded with energy and light... The world, at that moment , opened before me, challenging me, beckoning me, demanding something of me that it would take more than a lifetime to give, but raising all my energies by its own vivid promise to a higher pitch.

  

  Lewis Mumford
  • World
  • Energy
  • Light

• As network administrator I can take down the network with one keystroke. It's just like being a doctor but without getting gooky stuff on my paws.

  

  Scott Adams
  • Doctor
  • Network
  • Administrator

• I think the fact that I look totally artificial, but I am totally real, has its own kind of magic in it.

  

  Dolly Parton
  • Thinking
  • Real
  • Magic

• The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.

  

  Harlan Ellison

• If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly composed of H-2-O, or even mineral water, or saki. Meditation is Drinking it!

  

  Taisen Deshimaru
  • Water
  • Forever
  • Cold

• When I think of anything properly describable as a beautiful idea, it is always in the form of music. I have written and printed probably 10,000,000 words in English but all the same I shall die an inarticulate man, for my best ideas beset me in a language I know only vaguely and speak only as a child.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • Music
  • Beautiful
  • Words

• No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.

  

  Jonathan Swift
  • Honor
  • Promise
  • Regard