Jonathan Swift Quotes

Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer; I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.

It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.

In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man uncapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence.

Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.

By the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England.

We have an intuitive sense of our duty.

He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.

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.

Just get the right syllable in the proper place.

Two women seldom grow intimate but at the expense of a third person.

A carpenter is known by his chips.

Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.

It is an uncontrolled truth, that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them.

Oh how our neighbour lifts his nose, To tell what every schoolboy knows.

Great abilities, when employed as God directs, do but make the owners of them greater and more painful servants to their neighbors.

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.

A maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith.

Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.

Every age might perhaps produce one or two geniuses, if they were not sunk under the censure and obloquy of plodding, servile, imitating pedants.

You must take the will for the deed.

A poor spirit is poorer than a poor purse. A very few pounds a year would ease a man of the scandal of avarice.

The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides.

The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.

Such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up.

It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and malice together, because it gives his answerer double work.

I am of the level with common Astrologers; who, with an old paltry cant, and a few pot-hooks for planets to amuse the vulgar, have too long been suffered to abuse the world.

Fond of those hives where folly reigns, And cards and scandal are the chains, Where the pert virgin slights a name, And scorns to redden into shame.

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?

Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own; can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book; convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.

There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity; nor any which by ill management makes so contemptible a figure.

When I am in danger of bursting, I will go and whisper among the reeds.

Though Diogenes lived in a tub, there might be, for aught I know, as much pride under his rags, as in the fine-spun garments of the divine Plato.

Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.

This made me reflect, how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.

Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind.

Conversation is but carving! Give no more to every guest Than he's able to digest.

For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door

If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.

Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.

Ale is meat, drink and cloth; it will make a cat speak and a wise man dumb.

Philosophy! the lumber of the schools.

What some people invent the rest enlarge.

Under the rose, since here are none but friends, To own the truth we have some private ends.

Your onions should be thoroughly boiled.

The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.

I'm up and down and round about, Yet all the world can't find me out; Though hundreds have employed their leisure, They never yet could find my measure.

Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.

My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons.

I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.

I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals.