Jonathan Swift Quotes

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”

“T is as cheap sitting as standing.”

“Hail, follow, well met, All dirty and wet: Find out, if you can, Who's master, who's man.”

“Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent.”

“Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.”

“The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.”

“A college joke to cure the dumps.”

“Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.”

“Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes.”

“All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.”

“We have an intuitive sense of our duty.”

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

“It is an uncontrolled truth, that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them.”

“It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.”

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

“The affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.”

“Argument is the worst sort of conversation.”

“The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.”

“You must take the will for the deed.”

“Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.”

“If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste.”

“Unjustly poets we asperse: Truth shines the brighter clad in verse, And all the fictions they pursue Do but insinuate what is true.”

“A secret is seldom safe in more than one breast.”

“I never knew any man cured of inattention.”

“For poetry, he's past his prime,He takes an hour to find a rhyme;His fire is out, his wit decayed,His fancy sunk, his muse a jade.I'd have him throw away his pen,But there's no talking to some men.”