Jonathan Swift Quotes
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If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
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Argument is the worst sort of conversation.
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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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In church your grandsire cut his throat; to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my hearty vote to cut his throat before he married.
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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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From not the gravest of Divines, Accept for once some serious Lines.
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In all I wish, how happy should I be, Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee? So weak thou art that fools thy power despise; And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
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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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She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse.
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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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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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Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
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The most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.
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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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Patience alleviates, as impatience augments, pain; thus persons of strong will suffer less than those who give way to irritation.
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Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind.
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And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.
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Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.
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Don't set your wit against a child.
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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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... the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion ... that is to say all those who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers.
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"Lawyers Are": Those whose interests and abilities lie in perverting, confounding and eluding the law.
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Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.
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It is the talent of human nature to run from one extreme to another.