Top 438 Quotes & Sayings by Jonathan Swift - Page 6

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.

The more careless, the more modish.

Desponding Phyllis was endu'd With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, She trembled when a Man drew near; Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: If o'er against her you were plac'd She durst not look above your Waist

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

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

Surely mortal man is a broomstick!

Neither is it safe to count upon the weakness of any man's understanding, who is thoroughly possessed of the spirit of revenge to sharpen his invention.

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

For in that universal call, Few bankers will to heaven be mounters; They'll cry, "Ye shops, upon us fall! Conceal and cover us, ye counters! When other hands the scales shall hold, And they, in men's and angels' sight Produced with all their bills and gold, 'Weigh'd in the balance and found light!'

For want of a block, man will stumble at a straw.

Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline.

From not the gravest of Divines, Accept for once some serious Lines.

I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water.

Exploding many things under the name of trifles is a very false proof either of wisdom or magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions with regard to fame.

It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.

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.

We have an intuitive sense of our duty.

By the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England.

She 's no chicken; she 's on the wrong side of thirty, if she be a day.

To acknowledge you were wrong yesterday is simply to let the world know that you are wiser today than you were then.

I've often wish'd that I had clear, For life, six hundred pounds a year; A handsome house to lodge a friend; A river at my garden's end; A terrace walk, and half a rood Of land set out to plant a wood.

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

This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk.

Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.

Books, like men their authors, have no more than one wayofcoming intothe world, but there areten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.

A secret is seldom safe in more than one breast.

When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.

What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.

Vanity is a natural object of temptation to a woman.

When a man of genius appears in the world, it is immediately recognized by the fact that all the blockheads join forces against him.

The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may be resolved into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and vice.

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.

Come, agree, the law's costly.

I row after health like a waterman.

Old sciences are unraveled like old stockings, by beginning at the foot.

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

The most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.

It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. "Future ages shall talk of this; they shall be famous to all posterity;" whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.

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

All Pretences of foretelling by Astrology, are Deceits; for this manifest Reason, because the Wise and Learned, who can only judge whether there be any Truth in this Science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise it; and none but the poor ignorant Vulgar give it any Credit.

In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man uncapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence.

In all I wish, how happy should I be, Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee? So weak thou art that fools thy power despise; And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.

I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be called to it, that by your great and frequent urgency you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels, with directions to hire some young gentleman of either university to put them in order, and correct the style, as my cousin Dampier did, by my advice, in his book called "A Voyage round the world."

God hath intended our passions to prevail over reason.

The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, has of all animals the nimblest tongue.

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.

With a whirl of thought oppressed I sink from reverie to rest. An horrid vision seized my head, I saw the graves give up their dead.

In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.

Your onions should be thoroughly boiled.

The translators of the Bible were masters of an English style much fitter for that work than any we see in our present writings; the which is owing to the simplicity that runs through the whole.

Just get the right syllable in the proper place.

'Tis happy for him that his Father was born before him.

Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer; I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.

Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?

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

Sweeping from butcher's stalls, dung, guts, and blood, Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud, Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king or a good ministry; for which reason Courts are so overrun with politics.

Triumphant Tories, and desponding Whigs, Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.

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

A Child will make two Dishes at an Entertainment for Friends; and when the Family dines alone, the fore or hind Quarter will makea reasonable Dish; and seasoned with a little Pepper or Salt, will be very good Boiled on the fourth Day, especially in Winter.