Ingratitude is amongst them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus; that whoever makes ill-returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of the mankind, from where he has received no obligations and therefore such man is not fit to live.
Jonathan SwiftThe reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.
Jonathan SwiftReligion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy.
Jonathan SwiftNothing more unqualified the man to act with prudence than a misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt.
Jonathan SwiftThis 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