Jonathan Swift Quotes

300 Sourced Quotes

The translators of the Bible were masters of an English style much fitter for that work than any we see in our present writings; the which is owing to the simplicity that runs through the whole.

Jonathan Swift

The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age; but that of a good one will not reform it.

Jonathan Swift

It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be: and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.

Jonathan Swift

Dignity, high station, or great riches, are in some sort necessary to old men, in order to keep the younger at a distance, who are otherwise too apt to insult them upon the score of their age.

Jonathan Swift

He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.

Jonathan Swift

I'm up and down and round about, Yet all the world can't find me out; Though hundreds have employed their leisure, They never yet could find my measure.

Jonathan Swift

Triumphant Tories, and desponding Whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.

Jonathan Swift

It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.

Jonathan Swift

Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent.

Jonathan Swift

I with borrow'd silver shine,
What you see is none of mine.
First I show you but a quarter,
Like the bow that guards the Tartar:
Then the half, and then the whole,
Ever dancing round the pole.

Jonathan Swift

I am of the level with common Astrologers; who, with an old paltry cant, and a few pot-hooks for planets to amuse the vulgar, have too long been suffered to abuse the world.

Jonathan Swift

A prince, the moment he is crown'd,
Inherits every virtue sound,
As emblems of the sovereign power,
Like other baubles in the Tower:
Is generous, valiant, just, and wise,
And so continues till he dies.

Jonathan Swift

It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us; it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.

Jonathan Swift

In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man uncapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence.

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

Careful observers may foretell the hour
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a show'r.
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.

Jonathan Swift

It is the talent of human nature to run from one extreme to another.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jonathan Swift

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

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

If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.

Jonathan Swift

Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation td posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.

Jonathan Swift