Jonathan Swift Quotes
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How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.
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Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending. May you live all the days of your life.
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Hoever wishes to win in this game must have patience and money, since the values are so little constant and the rumors so little founded on truth Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
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This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.
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Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
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Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
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Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired.
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Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
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My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.
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Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
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Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.
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When a real genius appeares in this world, you'll know him by the fact that all the fools have allied against him.
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Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.
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If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste.
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Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.
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She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitchfork.
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Rebukes are easy from our betters, From men of quality and letters; But when low dunces will affront, What man alive can stand the brunt?
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Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.
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It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and malice together, because it gives his answerer double work.
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Abstracts, abridgments, summaries, etc., have the same use with burning-glasses,--to collect the diffused light rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination.
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Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?
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I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
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I shall be like that tree-I shall die at the top.
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In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends; While Nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us.