Jonathan Swift Quotes
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Books, the children of the brain.
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Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
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I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.
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It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.
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The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
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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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The more careless, the more modish.
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By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.
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It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.
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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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It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. "Future ages shall talk of this; they shall be famous to all posterity;" whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.
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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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If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
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The sight of you is good for sore eyes.
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Men of wit, learning and virtue might strike out every offensive or unbecoming passage from plays.
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They say fish should swim thrice * * * first it should swim in the sea (do you mind me?) then it should swim in butter, and at last, sirrah, it should swim in good claret.
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Let a man be never so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
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Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.
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I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.
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Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.
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War: that mad game the world so loves to play.
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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.
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Perverseness is your whole defence.
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I love white Portugal wine better than claret, champagne, or burgundy. I have a sad vulgar appetite.