Jonathan Swift Quotes
-
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.
-
With a whirl of thought oppressed I sink from reverie to rest. An horrid vision seized my head, I saw the graves give up their dead.
-
Bachelor's fare: bread and cheese, and kisses.
-
Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.
-
If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.
-
I never knew any man cured of inattention.
-
Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
-
It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be: and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.
-
Hail fellow, well met.
-
I row after health like a waterman.
-
Come hither, all ye empty things, Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of Kings; Who float upon the tide of state, Come hither, and behold your fate. Let pride be taught by this rebuke, How very mean a thing's a Duke; From all his ill-got honours flung, Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.
-
There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a talking man having nothing to say.
-
The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.
-
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.
-
Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.
-
In all assemblies, though you wedge them ever so close, we may observe this peculiar property, that over their heads there is room enough; but how to reach it is the difficult point. To this end the philosopher's way in all ages has been by erecting certain edifices in the air.
-
That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.
-
Strange an astrologer should die, without one wonder in the sky.
-
Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature.
-
Ale is meat, drink and cloth; it will make a cat speak and a wise man dumb.
-
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.
-
Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad.
-
He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.
-
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.