Jonathan Swift Quotations

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

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

May you live all the days of your life.

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

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

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

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

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

I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

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

The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.

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

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.

A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour.

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

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

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

Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.

There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.

Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.

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

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.

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

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.

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

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

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

He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The want of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.

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.

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

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

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

If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

One of the very best rules of conversation is to never, say anything which any of the company wish had been left unsaid.

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

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

Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly

May you live every day of your life.

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

She looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth

She wears her clothes as if they are thrown on with a pitchfork

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

If a proud man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is that he keeps his at the same time

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

I have almost done with harridans, and shall soon become old enough to fall in love with girls of fourteen

He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.

He was a bold man that first eat on oyster.

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after

Laws are best explained, interpreted and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding and eluding them

Usually speaking, the worst bred person in company is a young traveler just returned from abroad

When the belly is full, the bones would be at rest

Whoever makes two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and does more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together

Tis an old maxim in the schools, That flattery's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men of wit, Will condescend to take a bit

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.

Coffee makes us severe, and grave and philosophical.

When the world has once begun to use us ill, it afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony, as men do to a whore

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

War is the child of Pride, and Pride the daughter of Riches.

It was a bold person that first ate an oyster.

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

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

Style may defined as the proper words in the proper places.

Promises and Pye-Crusts - are made to be broken

Proper words in proper places make the true definition of style.

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

Faith! He must make his stories shorter or change his comrades once a quarter.

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they are merely making a sacrifice to God of the Devil's leavings