Jonathan Swift Quotes

All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.

I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals: for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor Such-a-one, and Judge Such-a-one: so with physicians - I will not speak of my own trade - soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. This is the system upon which I have governed myself many years, but do not tell.

There seems to be no part of knowledge in fewer hands than that of discerning when to have done.

My Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood; is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.

Many a truth is told in jest.

If it were a rainy day, a drunken vigil, a fit of the spleen, a course of physic, sleepy Sunday, an ill run at dice, a long tailor's bill, a beggar's purse, a factious head, a hot sun, costive diet, want of books, and a just contempt for learning - but for these. . .the number of authors and of writing would dwindle away to a degree most woeful to behold.

No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.

A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.

Patience alleviates, as impatience augments, pain; thus persons of strong will suffer less than those who give way to irritation.

Pray steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's, Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies.

Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby that we must take time by the forelock; for, when it is once past, there is no recalling it.

Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.

I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.

There is no talent so useful toward rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of men, and in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence.

Would 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.

In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends; While Nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us.

To acknowledge you were wrong yesterday is simply to let the world know that you are wiser today than you were then.

I never knew any man cured of inattention.

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.

So, naturalists observe, a flea; Hath smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum.

Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.

Party is the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

Come, agree, the law's costly.

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

Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.

It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of the spider.

For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door

If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.

'Tis happy for him that his Father was born before him.

Perpetual aiming at wit is a very bad part of conversation. It is done to support a character: it generally fails; it is a sort of insult on the company, and a restraint upon the speaker.

Don't set your wit against a child.

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve around Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost five: the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half, so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distances from the center of Mars; which evidently shows them to be governed by the same Law of Gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.

The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

In all assemblies, though you wedge them ever so close, we may observe this peculiar property, that over their heads there is room enough; but how to reach it is the difficult point. To this end the philosopher's way in all ages has been by erecting certain edifices in the air.

There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them.

This made me reflect, how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.

I love good creditable acquaintance; I love to be the worst of the company.

Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.

Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.

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

We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together; Let none but Him who rules the thunder Put this man and woman asunder.

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.

I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.