Jonathan Swift Quotes
-
Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
-
If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
-
Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together; Let none but Him who rules the thunder Put this man and woman asunder.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
We have an intuitive sense of our duty.
-
Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.
-
When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we be pleased or not.
-
When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.
-
A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.
-
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.
-
Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.
-
I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water.
-
Bread is the staff of life.
-
Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
-
My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons.
-
Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending. May you live all the days of your life.
-
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.
-
Exploding many things under the name of trifles is a very false proof either of wisdom or magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions with regard to fame.
-
The ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion.
-
Have you not observed that there is a lower kind of discretion and regularity, which seldom fails of raising men to the highest station in the court, the church, and the law?
-
Let a man be never so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
-
I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.