Jonathan Swift Quotes
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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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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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I must complain the cards are ill shuffled till I have a good hand.
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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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Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
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The various opinions of philosophers have scattered through the world as many plagues of the mind as Pandora's box did those of the body; only with this difference, that they have not left hope at the bottom.
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Argument is the worst sort of conversation.
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Simplicity, without which no human performance can arrive at perfection.
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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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If they would, for Example, praise the Beauty of a Woman, or any other Animal, they describe it by Rhombs, Circles, Parallelograms, Ellipses, and other geometrical terms.
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There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.
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Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer; I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.
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A forward critic often dupes us With sham quotations peri hupsos, And if we have not read Longinus, Will magisterially outshine us. Then, lest with Greek he over-run ye, Procure the book for love or money, Translated from Boileau's translation, And quote quotation on quotation.
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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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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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Vain men delight in telling what Honours have been done them, what great Company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess, that these Honours were more than their Due, and such as their Friends would not believe if they had not been told: Whereas a Man truly proud, thinks the greatest Honours below his Merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a Maxim that whoever desires the Character of a proud Man, ought to conceal his Vanity.
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Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
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Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy.
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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.
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Hail, follow, well met, All dirty and wet: Find out, if you can, Who's master, who's man.
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I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
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Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.
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A lie is an excuse guarded.
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A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?