Jonathan Swift Quotes
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.
May you live all the days of your life.
It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
My nose itch’d, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.
A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.
Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived.
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
Every dog must have his day.
I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is towards individuals.
A coward is a hero with a wife, kids, and a mortgage.
There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.
The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.
It is better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.
I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.
Resolve to be virtuous, and you will be so.
May you live every day of your life.
The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
People are like music. Some speak the truth, and others are just noise.
He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.
May you live all the days of your life.
Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.
Nothing is so great an instance of ill manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please no one.
Opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one.
The latter part of a wise person’s life is taken up curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions they contracted earlier.
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London that a young, healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled.
My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others!
Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.
Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.
If a man could be allowed to make more than one observation in the same vein without sounding like a jackass, I would like to point out that ‘modest proposal’ is what Jonathan Swift calls his penis.
When people ask me if I’m interested in turning non-readers on to books, I usually say something smart-alecky like, I didn’t turn on to books until I was 22, and, at that time of my life, I wouldn’t have believed that turning on to books could be a thing.
The most positive men are the most credulous.
Style is the dress of thought; a modest dress, Neat but not gaudy, will true critics please.
May you live as long as you may wish and love as long as you live.
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.
Wars begin when you will, but they do not always end when you please.
I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.
He was a bold man who first swallowed an oyster.