Jonathan Swift Quotes
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Silks, velvets, calicoes, and the whole lexicon of female fopperies.
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I love good creditable acquaintance; I love to be the worst of the company.
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Punning is an art of harmonious jingling upon words, which, passing in at the ears, excites a titillary motion in those parts; and this, being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises the cockles of the heart.
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Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.
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Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature.
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So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men that they will grasp at all, and can form no scheme of perfect happiness with less.
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I row after health like a waterman.
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Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad.
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Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
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Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
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The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting.
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If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning etc., beginning from his youth, and so go to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last.
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Ah, a German and a genius! A prodigy, admit him!
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Whence proceeds this weight we lay On what detracting people say? Their utmost malice cannot make Your head, or tooth, or finger ache; Nor spoil your shapes, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place.
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A pleasant companion is as good as a coach.
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Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.
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The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.
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He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.
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For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
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It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of the spider.
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Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.
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When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.
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If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.