Jonathan Swift Quotes
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Whoe'er excels in what we prize, Appears a hero in our eyes; Each girl, when pleased with what is taught, Will have the teacher in her thought. . . . . A blockhead with melodious voice, In boarding-schools may have his choice.
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Perverseness is your whole defence.
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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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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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War: that mad game the world so loves to play.
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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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Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.
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Come, agree, the law's costly.
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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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Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
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The most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.
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Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.
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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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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.
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The ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion.
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Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
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Men of wit, learning and virtue might strike out every offensive or unbecoming passage from plays.
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Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.
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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.
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Nothing more unqualified the man to act with prudence than a misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt.
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The more careless, the more modish.
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Every dog must have his day.
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Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.
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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.