Jonathan Swift Quotes

“Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.”

“May you live all the days of your life.”

“Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad.”

“I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he shewed as a pattern to encourage purchasers.”

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

“A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.”

“He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.”

“A prince, the moment he is crown'd,Inherits every virtue sound,As emblems of the sovereign power,Like other baubles in the Tower:Is generous, valiant, just, and wise,And so continues till he dies.”

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

“The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.”

“Such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up.”

“I hate nobody: I am in charity with the world.”

“Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.”

“There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.”

“I used to wonder how a man of birth and spirit could endure to be wholly insignificant and obscure in a foreign country, when he might live with lustre in his own.”

“I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own; where the law hath not been able to find an expedient.”

“The two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.”

“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.”

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

“Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !”

“A stander-by may sometimes, perhaps, see more of the game than he that plays it.”

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

“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.”

“Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe, how much it altered her person for the worse.”

“Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.”