Jonathan Swift Quotes

"A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than yesterday."

"A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle."

"A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart."

"A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart."

"Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of."

"And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."

"As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense."

"As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold."

"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."

"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."

"Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent."

"Faith, that's as well said, as if I had said it myself."

"For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery."

"Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room."

"He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers."

"Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction."

"I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning."

"I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed."

"I've always believed no matter how many shots I miss, I'm going to make the next one."

"Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age."

"Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age."

"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."

"It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not."

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

"Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly."

"Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals, are in imitation of fighting."

"My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool."

"No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience."

"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."

"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."

"Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want."

"One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good."

"Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions."

"Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance."

"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."

"Pretense is the overrating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to."

"Proper words in proper places make the true definiton of style."

"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own."

"She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitch folk."

"So weak thou art that fools thy power despise; And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise."

"The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman."

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

"The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit."

"The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style."

"The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes."

"There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake."

"There is nothing in this world constant but inconstancy."

"There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails."

"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."

"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others."

"We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same."

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."

"What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly."

"When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him."

"Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath."

"Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes."

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

View Jonathan Swift: Poems | Quotes | Biography | Books