A poor spirit is poorer than a poor purse. A very few pounds a year would ease a man of the scandal of avarice.
Jonathan SwiftWould 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 SwiftTo acknowledge you were wrong yesterday is simply to let the world know that you are wiser today than you were then.
Jonathan SwiftEver eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.
Jonathan SwiftWhen you set about your composing, it may be necessary for your ease, and better distillation of wit, to put on your worst clothes, and the worse the better; for an author, like a limbeck, will yield the better for having a rag about him: besides that, I have observed a gardener cut the outward rind of a tree (which is the surtout of it) to make it bear well; and this is a natural account of the usual poverty of poets, and is an argument why wits, of all men living, ought to be ill clad.
Jonathan Swift