Jonathan Swift Quotes
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Pray steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's, Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies.
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I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contribute to our present misery, than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would contribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harvest, although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life.
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It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us; it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.
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A maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith.
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Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.
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Simplicity, without which no human performance can arrive at perfection.
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Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.
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Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer; I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.
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Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives and the sincerest part of our devotion.
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What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.
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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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Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.
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It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.
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Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.
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You must take the will for the deed.
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If it were a rainy day, a drunken vigil, a fit of the spleen, a course of physic, sleepy Sunday, an ill run at dice, a long tailor's bill, a beggar's purse, a factious head, a hot sun, costive diet, want of books, and a just contempt for learning - but for these. . .the number of authors and of writing would dwindle away to a degree most woeful to behold.
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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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From not the gravest of Divines, Accept for once some serious Lines.
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Love why do we one passion call, When 'tis a compound of them all? Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet, In all their equipages meet; Where pleasures mix'd with pains appear, Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.
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Your onions should be thoroughly boiled.
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What some people invent the rest enlarge.
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Ah, a German and a genius! A prodigy, admit him!
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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.
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Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine and women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age.