Jonathan Swift Quotes

300 Sourced Quotes

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
It may be said that all understanding of the universe comes from the combined action of two faculties in us, the power to register impressions and the capacity to reason and reflect on them.

Jonathan Swift
This Day, whate'er the Fates decree;
Shall still be kept with Joy by me:
This Day then, let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old

Jonathan Swift
111 company is like a dog, who dirts those most whom he loves best.

Jonathan Swift
He said that new systems of nature were but new fashions, which would vary in every age; and even those who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical principles, would flourish but a short period of time, and be out of vogue when that [system of nature] was determined.

Jonathan Swift
Common fluency of speech in many men and most women is owing to a scarcity of matter.

Jonathan Swift
I am convinced that if the virtuosi could once find out a world in the moon, with a passage to it, our women would wear nothing but what directly came from thence.

Jonathan Swift
The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, has of all animals the nimblest tongue.

Jonathan Swift
It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of the spider.

Jonathan Swift
Love why do we one passion call,
When 'tis a compound of them all?
Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet,
In all their equipages meet;
Where pleasures mix'd with pains appear,
Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.

Jonathan Swift
Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind.

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

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

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