Jonathan Swift Quotes
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Wisdom is a fox who, after long hunting, will at last cost you the pains to dig out; it is a cheese, which, by how much the richer, has the thicker, the homlier, and the coarser coat; and whereof to a judicious palate, the maggots are best. It is a sack posset, wherein the deeper you go, you'll find it the sweeter. Wisdom is a hen, whose cackling we must value and consider, because it is attended with an egg. But lastly, it is a nut, which, unless you choose with judgment, may cost you a tooth, and pay you with nothing but a worm.
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He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.
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There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
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A pleasant companion is as good as a coach.
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Seamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship.
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When dunces are satiric, I take it for a panegyric.
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There seems to be no part of knowledge in fewer hands than that of discerning when to have done.
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So, naturalists observe, a flea; Hath smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum.
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Conversation is but carving! Give no more to every guest Than he's able to digest.
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Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.
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The sight of you is good for sore eyes.
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A stander-by may sometimes, perhaps, see more of the game than he that plays it.
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Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
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There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them.
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I have now lost my barrier between me and death; God grant I may live to be as well prepared for it, as I confidently believe her to have been! If the way to Heaven be through piety, truth, justice and charity, she is there.
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Books, the children of the brain.
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It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. "Future ages shall talk of this; they shall be famous to all posterity;" whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.
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Surely mortal man is a broomstick!
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Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation td posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.
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I love white Portugal wine better than claret, champagne, or burgundy. I have a sad vulgar appetite.
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The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a scarcity of words; for whosoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both.
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Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.
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Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.
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The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.