Jonathan Swift Quotes

“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.”

“A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour.”

“Walls have tongues, and hedges ears.”

“For though, in nature, depth and heightAre equally held infinite:In poetry, the height we know;'Tis only infinite below.”

“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.”

“A fig for partridges and quails, ye dainties I know nothing of ye; But on the highest mount in Wales Would choose in peace to drink my coffee.”

“The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.”

“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.”

“Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.”

“I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals.”

“I with borrow'd silver shine,What you see is none of mine.First I show you but a quarter,Like the bow that guards the Tartar:Then the half, and then the whole,Ever dancing round the pole.”

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

“Hereditary right should be kept sacred, not from any inalienable right in a particular family, but to avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of competitors.”

“He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.”

“My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons.”

“Surely mortal man is a broomstick!”

“Coffee makes us severe, and grave and philosophical.”

“I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.”

“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.”

“Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.”

“Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.”

“Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.”

“The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as is the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at.”

“What some people invent the rest enlarge.”

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