Jonathan Swift Quotes

In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.

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.

Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.

I cannot imagine why we should be at the expense to furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former have made no sort of provision for ours.

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

And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.

That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.

It is likewise to be observed that this society hath a peculiar chant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply.

I row after health like a waterman.

A maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith.

Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. If you are civil to the voluble they will abuse your patience; if brusque, your character.

It is remarkable with what Christian fortitude and resignation we can bear the suffering of other folks.

Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.

No man will take counsel, but every man will take money. Therefore, money is better than counsel.

It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.

Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.

For, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition: that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.

Quotations are best brought in to confirm some opinion controverted.

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

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

We have an intuitive sense of our duty.

Everyone desires long life, not one old age.

I love white Portugal wine better than claret, champagne, or burgundy. I have a sad vulgar appetite.

She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body.

There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.

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

If they would, for Example, praise the Beauty of a Woman, or any other Animal, they describe it by Rhombs, Circles, Parallelograms, Ellipses, and other geometrical terms.

Love of flattery, in most men, proceeds from the mean opinion they have of themselves; in women, from the contrary.

Who can deny that all men are violent lovers of the truth, when we see them so positive in their errors, which they will maintain out of their zeal for truth, although they contradict themselves every day of their lives.

Though Diogenes lived in a tub, there might be, for aught I know, as much pride under his rags, as in the fine-spun garments of the divine Plato.

Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.

When 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.

All human race would be wits. And millions miss, for one that hits.

Blot out, correct, insert, refine, enlarge, diminish, interline. Be mindful, when invention fails. To scratch your head and bite your nails.

It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.

Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.

When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we be pleased or not.

I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.

Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.

The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.

The system of morality to be gathered from the ancient sages falls very short of that delivered in the gospel.

'T is an old maxim in the schools, That flattery 's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit.

The best Maxim I know in this life is, to drink your Coffee when you can, and when you cannot, to be easy without it. While you continue to be splenetic, count upon it I will always preach. Thus much I sympathize with you that I am not cheerful enough to write, for I believe Coffee once a week is necessary to that.

Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.

Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room.

Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.

Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.

Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.