Jonathan Swift Quotes & Sayings

Exploding many things under the name of trifles is a very false proof either of wisdom or magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions with regard to fame. — Jonathan Swift

I shall be like that tree-I shall die at the top. — Jonathan Swift

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. — Jonathan Swift

The worst mark you can recieve is a promise, especially when it is confirmed with an oath; after which every man retires, and gives over all hopes. (referring to Chief Minister of State) — Jonathan Swift

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. — Jonathan Swift

A carpenter is known by his chips. — Jonathan Swift

Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding. — Jonathan Swift

But he may please to consider, that the caprices of womankind are not limited by any climate or nation; and that they are much more uniform than can be easily imagined. — Jonathan Swift

Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with the public will convince them as he himself appears convinced. — Jonathan Swift

A jargon form'd from the lost language, wit, Confounded in that Babel of the pit; Form'd by diseased conceptions, weak and wild, Sick lust of souls, and an abortive child; Born between whores and fops, by lewd compacts, Before the play, or else between the acts; Nor wonder, if from such polluted minds Should spring such short and transitory kinds. — Jonathan Swift

My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool. — Jonathan Swift

Hail fellow, well met. — Jonathan Swift

I should perhaps like others have astonished you with strange improbable tales; but I rather chose to relate plain matter of fact in the simplest manner and style; because my principal design was to inform you, and not to amuse you. — Jonathan Swift

Say, Britain, could you ever boast, Three poets in an age at most? Our chilling climate hardly bears A sprig of bays in fifty years. — Jonathan Swift

That was excellently observed', say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken. — Jonathan Swift

Two days after this adventure, the emperor, having ordered that part of his army which quarters in and about his metropolis, to be in readiness, took a fancy of diverting himself in a very singular manner. He desired I would stand like a Colossus, with my legs as far asunder as I conveniently could. — Jonathan Swift

Ingratitude is amongst them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus; that whoever makes ill-returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of the mankind, from where he has received no obligations and therefore such man is not fit to live. — Jonathan Swift

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. — Jonathan Swift

Brisk talkers are generally slow thinkers. — Jonathan Swift

Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly. — Jonathan Swift

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent. — Jonathan Swift

If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time. — Jonathan Swift

Nothing more unqualified the man to act with prudence than a misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt. — Jonathan Swift

Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old. — Jonathan Swift

A pleasant companion is as good as a coach. — Jonathan Swift

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

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. — Jonathan Swift

Regard to good morals than to great abilities; for, since government is necessary to mankind, they believe, that the common size of human understanding is fitted to some station or other; and that Providence never intended to make the management of public affairs a mystery to be comprehended only by a few persons of sublime — Jonathan Swift

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. — Jonathan Swift

Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it. — Jonathan Swift

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

Sweeping from butcher's stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud,
Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood. — Jonathan Swift

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. — Jonathan Swift

But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole. — Jonathan Swift

Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison. — Jonathan Swift

There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest. — Jonathan Swift

The greatest Inventions were produced in Times of Ignorance; as the Use of the Compass, Gunpowder, and Printing; and by the dullest Nation, as the Germans. — Jonathan Swift

Words are the clothing of our thoughts. — Jonathan Swift

The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk. — Jonathan Swift

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. — Jonathan Swift

No wise man ever wished to be younger. — Jonathan Swift

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. — Jonathan Swift

Frequently exercised in my sight, to accustom themselves to me. — Jonathan Swift

A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle. — Jonathan Swift

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

Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby that we must take time by the forelock; for, when it is once past, there is no recalling it. — Jonathan Swift

The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting. — Jonathan Swift

I winked at my own littleness, as people do at their own faults. — Jonathan Swift

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

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest. — Jonathan Swift

When a man of genius appears in the world, it is immediately recognized by the fact that all the blockheads join forces against him. — Jonathan Swift

It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom. — Jonathan Swift

Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events. — Jonathan Swift

The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.
— Jonathan Swift

Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw. — Jonathan Swift

If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any. — Jonathan Swift

Pray steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's, Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies. — Jonathan Swift

But a Broom-stick, perhaps you will say, is an Emblem of a Tree standing on its Head; and pray what is Man but a topsy-turvy Creature? His Animal Faculties perpetually mounted on his Rational; his Head where his Heels should be, groveling on the Earth. — Jonathan Swift

Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. If you are civil to the voluble they will abuse your patience; if brusque, your character. — Jonathan Swift

Thus the young ladies are as much ashamed of being cowards and fools as the men, and despise all personal ornaments, beyond decency and cleanliness: neither did I perceive any difference in their education made by their difference of sex, only that the exercises of the females were not altogether so robust; and — Jonathan Swift

And, is not Virtue in Mankind
The Nutriment that feeds the Mind? — Jonathan Swift

No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath. — Jonathan Swift

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. — Jonathan Swift

A traveler's chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad-as well as good example of what they deliver concerning foreign places. — Jonathan Swift

For as health is but one thing, and has been always the same, whereas diseases are by thousands, besides new and daily additions, so all the virtues that have been ever in mankind are to be counted upon a few fingers, but his follies and vices are innumerable, and time adds hourly to the heap. — Jonathan Swift

Whence proceeds this weight we lay
On what detracting people say?
Their utmost malice cannot make
Your head, or tooth, or finger ache;
Nor spoil your shapes, distort your face,
Or put one feature out of place. — Jonathan Swift

All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain and languor; it's like spending this year part of next year's revenue. — Jonathan Swift

I would rather be a freeman among slaves than a slave among freemen. — Jonathan Swift

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

... he never tells a truth, but with an intent that you should take it for a lye; nor a lye, but with the design that you should take it for a truth... — Jonathan Swift

They say fish should swim thrice * * * first it should swim in the sea (do you mind me?) then it should swim in butter, and at last, sirrah, it should swim in good claret. — Jonathan Swift

Bread is the staff of life. — Jonathan Swift

Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride. — Jonathan Swift

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. — Jonathan Swift

She 's no chicken; she 's on the wrong side of thirty, if she be a day. — Jonathan Swift

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. — Jonathan Swift

This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air. — Jonathan Swift

It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues. — Jonathan Swift

There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of the world,
to despise it, to return the like, or to endeavor to live so as to avoid it; the first of these is usually pretended, the last is almost impossible, the universal practice is for the second. — Jonathan Swift

This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk. — Jonathan Swift

All human race would be wits. And millions miss, for one that hits. — Jonathan Swift

A wise man will find us to be rogues by our faces. — Jonathan Swift

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

There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof I
hope there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am not
understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound
is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentence
is printed in a different character shall be judged to contain something
extraordinary either of wit or sublime. — Jonathan Swift

Everyone desires long life, not one old age. — Jonathan Swift

...I hid myself between two leaves of sorrel, and there discharged the necessities of nature. — Jonathan Swift

It is remarkable with what Christian fortitude and resignation we can bear the suffering of other folks. — Jonathan Swift

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. — Jonathan Swift

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 — Jonathan Swift

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into. — Jonathan Swift

It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities, to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of decreeing accordingly. — Jonathan Swift

Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old. — Jonathan Swift

When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we be pleased or not. — Jonathan Swift

Besides, I now considered myself as bound by the laws of hospitality, to a people who had treated me with so much expense and magnificence. — Jonathan Swift

Vanity is a natural object of temptation to a woman. — Jonathan Swift

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!' — Jonathan Swift

It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first. — Jonathan Swift

Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind. — Jonathan Swift

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

Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time. — Jonathan Swift