Jonathan Swift Quotes

300 Sourced Quotes

Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of Kings;
Who float upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing's a Duke;
From all his ill-got honours flung,
Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.

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

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

Jonathan Swift

Method is good in all things. Order governs the world.

Jonathan Swift

Your notions of friendship are new to me; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well know to whom I would give the first place in my friendship, but they are not in the way, I am condemned to another scene, and therefore I distribute it in pennyworths to those about me, and who displease me least, and should do the same to my fellow prisoners if I were condemned to a jail.

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

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

Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please; But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex.

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

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

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine and women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age...

Jonathan Swift

For though, in nature, depth and height
Are equally held infinite:
In poetry, the height we know;
'Tis only infinite below.

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

That incessant envy wherewith the common rate of mankind pursues all superior natures to their own.

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

My Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood; is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.

Jonathan Swift

O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee!. Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee.

Jonathan Swift

A stander-by may sometimes, perhaps, see more of the game than he that plays it.

Jonathan Swift

The affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.

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

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.

Jonathan Swift

In all assemblies, though you wedge them ever so close, we may observe this peculiar property, that over their heads there is room enough; but how to reach it is the difficult point. To this end the philosopher's way in all ages has been by erecting certain edifices in the air.

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

Silks, velvets, calicoes, and the whole lexicon of female fopperies.

Jonathan Swift

Desponding Phyllis was endu'd
With ev'ry Talent of a Prude,
She trembled when a Man drew near;
Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear:
If o'er against her you were plac'd
She durst not look above your Waist

Jonathan Swift

I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.

Jonathan Swift

This is every cook's opinion -
no savory dish without an onion,
but lest your kissing should be spoiled
your onions must be fully boiled.

Jonathan Swift

From not the gravest of Divines,
Accept for once some serious Lines.

Jonathan Swift

There was a most ingenious architect who had contrived a new method for building houses, by beginning at the roof, and working downward to the foundation.

Jonathan Swift