Jonathan Swift - Man Quotes

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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
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
Neither is it safe to count upon the weakness of any man's understanding, who is thoroughly possessed of the spirit of revenge to sharpen his invention.

Jonathan Swift
I used to wonder how a man of birth and spirit could endure to be wholly insignificant and obscure in a foreign country, when he might live with lustre in his own.

Jonathan Swift
Nature has left every man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of shining in company; and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified for both who, by a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.

Jonathan Swift
The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.

Jonathan Swift
This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.

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

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

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
Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.

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
If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.

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
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
The two maxims of any great man at court are always to keep his countenance and never to keep his word.

Jonathan Swift
A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.

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

Jonathan Swift
All true believers shall break their eggs at the convenient end: and which is the convenient end, seems, in my humble opinion, to be left to every man's conscience.

Jonathan Swift
Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired...

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

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