Jonathan Swift Quotes
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I never knew any man cured of inattention.
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Come, agree, the law's costly.
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Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
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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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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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I with borrow'd silver shine, What you see is none of mine. First I show you but a quarter, Like the bow that guards the Tartar: Then the half, and then the whole, Ever dancing round the pole.
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I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.
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Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature.
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Conscience signifies that knowledge which a man hath of his own thoughts and actions; and because, if a man judgeth fairly of his actions by comparing them with the law of God, his mind will approve or condemn him; this knowledge or conscience may be both an accuser and a judge.
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Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad.
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There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a talking man having nothing to say.
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Observation is an old man's memory.
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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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He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
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This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk.
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I must complain the cards are ill shuffled till I have a good hand.
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A favor is half granted, when graciously refused.
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It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.
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Ale is meat, drink and cloth; it will make a cat speak and a wise man dumb.
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Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.
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Atlas, we read in ancient song, Was so exceeding tall and strong, He bore the skies upon his back, Just as the pedler does his pack; But, as the pedler overpress'd Unloads upon a stall to rest, Or, when he can no longer stand, Desires a friend to lend a hand, So Atlas, lest the ponderous spheres Should sink, and fall about his ears, Got Hercules to bear the pile, That he might sit and rest awhile.
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A traveler's chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad-as well as good example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.
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He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.
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It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.