Jonathan Swift Quotes
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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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Silks, velvets, calicoes, and the whole lexicon of female fopperies.
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Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature.
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Such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up.
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I love good creditable acquaintance; I love to be the worst of the company.
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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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It is the talent of human nature to run from one extreme to another.
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Ah, a German and a genius! A prodigy, admit him!
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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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Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
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Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
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Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad.
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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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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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Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
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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.
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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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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.
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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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He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.
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A fig for partridges and quails, ye dainties I know nothing of ye; But on the highest mount in Wales Would choose in peace to drink my coffee.
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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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Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.
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Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.