Jonathan Swift Quotes
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Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
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The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.
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No wise man ever wished to be younger.
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I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
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A college joke to cure the dumps.
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All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.
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What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he? But rather than they should excel, He'd wish his rivals all in Hell.
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An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.
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Many a truth is told in jest.
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Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.
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What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.
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An English tongue, if refined to a certain standard, might perhaps be fixed forever.
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This is every cook's opinion - no savory dish without an onion, but lest your kissing should be spoiled your onions must be fully boiled.
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Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death.
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Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
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A true critic, in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones.
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One principal object of good-breeding is to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men, our superiors, our equals, and those below us.
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If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.
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Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline.
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I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.
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Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.
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Walls have tongues, and hedges ears.
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There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.
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No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.