Jonathan Swift Quotes
-
Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together; Let none but Him who rules the thunder Put this man and woman asunder.
-
I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.
-
Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind.
-
I used to wonder how a man of birth and spirit could endure to be wholly insignificant and obscure in a foreign country, when he might live with lustre in his own.
-
Bread is the staff of life.
-
It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.
-
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.
-
Surely mortal man is a broomstick!
-
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.
-
Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
-
Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
-
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.
-
We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same.
-
It is likewise to be observed that this society hath a peculiar chant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply.
-
When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we be pleased or not.
-
When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.
-
For in that universal call, Few bankers will to heaven be mounters; They'll cry, "Ye shops, upon us fall! Conceal and cover us, ye counters! When other hands the scales shall hold, And they, in men's and angels' sight Produced with all their bills and gold, 'Weigh'd in the balance and found light!'
-
It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.
-
There is no talent so useful toward rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of men, and in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence.
-
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.
-
Wise people are never less alone than when they are alone.
-
The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
-
How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.
-
A lie is an excuse guarded.