Jonathan Swift Quotes

300 Sourced Quotes

I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.

Jonathan Swift
What we call the Irish Brogue is no sooner discovered, than it makes the deliverer, in the last degree, ridiculous and despised; and, from such a mouth, an Englishman expects nothing but bulls, blunders, and follies.

Jonathan Swift
Unjustly poets we asperse: Truth shines the brighter clad in verse, And all the fictions they pursue Do but insinuate what is true.

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
How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.

Jonathan Swift
The most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.

Jonathan Swift
What poet would not grieve to see
His brother write as well as he?
But rather than they should excel,
He'd wish his rivals all in Hell.

Jonathan Swift
Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad.

Jonathan Swift
There was an astronomer who had undertaken to place a sun-dial upon the great weather-cock on the town-house, by adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun, so as to answer and coincide with all accidental turnings of the wind.

Jonathan Swift
This load-stone is under the care of certain astronomers, who from time to time give it such positions as the monarch directs. They spend the greatest part of their lives in observing the celestial bodies, which they do by the assistance of glasses, far excelling ours in goodness.

Jonathan Swift
For conversation well endued;
She calls it witty to be rude;
And, placing raillery in railing,
Will tell aloud your greatest failing.

Jonathan Swift
The sciences are found, like Hercules's oxen, by tracing them backward; and old sciences are unravelled like old stockings, by beginning at the foot.

Jonathan Swift
I have ever hated all nations, professions and communities, and all my love is towards individuals…But principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.

Jonathan Swift
Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age…

Jonathan Swift
And surely 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…

Jonathan Swift
When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.

Jonathan Swift
It is likewise to be observed that this society hath a peculiar chant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply.

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
Hail, fellow, well met,
All dirty and wet:
Find out if you can,
Who's master, who's man.

Jonathan Swift
Conversation is but carving!
Give no more to every guest
Than he's able to digest.
Give him always of the prime,
And but little at a time.
Carve to all but just enough,
Let them neither starve nor stuff,
And that you may have your due,
Let your neighbor carve for you.

Jonathan Swift
I hate nobody: I am in charity with all the world.

Jonathan Swift
A set of phrases learnt by rote;
A passion for a scarlet coat;
When at a play to laugh, or cry,
Yet cannot tell the reason why:
Never to hold her tongue a minute;
While all she prates has nothing in it.

Jonathan Swift
I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either.

Jonathan Swift
When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.

Jonathan Swift
So geographers, in Afric maps,
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.

Jonathan Swift
For, in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery: but in fact, eleven men well armed will certainly subdue one single man in his shirt.

Jonathan Swift
In all distresses of our friends,
We first consult our private ends;
While nature, kindly bent to ease us,
Points out some circumstance to please us.

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

Jonathan Swift
Poor Nations are hungry, and rich Nations are proud, and Pride and Hunger will ever be at Variance.

Jonathan Swift
Venus, a beautiful, good-natured lady, was the goddess of love; Juno, a terrible shrew, the goddess of marriage: and they were always mortal enemies.

Jonathan Swift