Jonathan Swift Quotes

300 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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

Jonathan Swift

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby that we must take time by the forelock; for, when it is once past, there is no recalling it.

Jonathan Swift

The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.

Jonathan Swift

Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavor to convict her; Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she's right; She may then grow wise for spite.

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

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

Elephants are always drawn smaller than life, but a flea larger.

Jonathan Swift

Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.

Jonathan Swift

Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.

Jonathan Swift

It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.

Jonathan Swift

The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may be resolved into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and vice.

Jonathan Swift

The earth very narrowly escaped a brush from the tail of the last comet, which would have infallibly reduced it to ashes.

Jonathan Swift