Jonathan Swift Quotes
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All Pretences of foretelling by Astrology, are Deceits; for this manifest Reason, because the Wise and Learned, who can only judge whether there be any Truth in this Science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise it; and none but the poor ignorant Vulgar give it any Credit.
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Books, the children of the brain.
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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.
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Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.
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There is no talent so useful toward rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of men, and in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence.
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Pray steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's, Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies.
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Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.
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Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination.
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From not the gravest of Divines, Accept for once some serious Lines.
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Love why do we one passion call, When 'tis a compound of them all? Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet, In all their equipages meet; Where pleasures mix'd with pains appear, Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.
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Wise people are never less alone than when they are alone.
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Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
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"Lawyers Are": Those whose interests and abilities lie in perverting, confounding and eluding the law.
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One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
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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.
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Ay, do despise me, I'm the prouder for it; I like to be despised.
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She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse.
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Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.
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There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them.
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Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.
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Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
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By the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England.
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It often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it.
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Come, agree, the law's costly.