Jonathan Swift Quotes

“Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.”

“Whoe'er excels in what we prize,Appears a hero in our eyes;Each girl, when pleased with what is taught,Will have the teacher in her thought.. . . .A blockhead with melodious voice,In boarding-schools may have his choice.”

“I row after health like a waterman.”

“This is every cook's opinion -no savory dish without an onion,but lest your kissing should be spoiledyour onions must be fully boiled.”

“Vision is seeing the invisible.”

“I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are as slaves.”

“A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than yesterday.”

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

“Under the rose, since here are none but friends, To own the truth we have some private ends.”

“Books, the children of the brain.”

“Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.”

“Punning is an art of harmonious jingling upon words, which, passing in at the ears, excites a titillary motion in those parts; and this, being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises the cockles of the heart.”

“Your onions should be thoroughly boiled.”

“My horses understand me tolerably well; I converse with them at least four hours every day. They are strangers to bridle or saddle; they live in great amity with me, and friendship of each other.”

“Brutes find out where their talents lie; a bear will not attempt to fly.”

“I shall be like that tree-I shall die at the top.”

“Cruel people are ever cowards in emergency.”

“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.”

“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.”

“What poet would not grieve to seeHis brother write as well as he?But rather than they should excel,He'd wish his rivals all in Hell.”

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

“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.”

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

“So geographers, in Africa maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er uninhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns”

“It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.”