Jonathan Swift - Man Quotes

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I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he shewed as a pattern to encourage purchasers.

Jonathan Swift
These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity and virtue...with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive, and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth.

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

Jonathan Swift
Brutes find out where their talents lie; A bear will not attempt to fly, A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five barred gate. A dog by instinct turns aside Who sees the ditch too deep and wide, But man we find the only creature Who, led by folly, combats nature; Who, when she loudly cries-Forbear! With obstinacy fixes there; And where the genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs.

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

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

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
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into.

Jonathan Swift