Jonathan Swift Quotes About Age

Quotes about: Age

• No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.

  Jonathan Swift

  Funny, Life, Time

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

  Jonathan Swift

  Cute, Men, Long

• We of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking.

  Jonathan Swift

  Reading, Thinking, Criticism

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.72, Delphi Classics

• Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.

  Jonathan Swift

  Judging, Age, Literature

• Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy.

  Jonathan Swift

  Nurse, Miracle, Age

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Roscoe (1843). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.304

• If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning etc., beginning from his youth, and so go to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last.

  Jonathan Swift

  Love, Learning, Men

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.895, Delphi Classics

• Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.

  Jonathan Swift

  Forever, Age, Want

• 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.

  Jonathan Swift

  Friendship, Years, Age

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Roscoe (1843). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.764

• The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.

  Jonathan Swift

  Wise, Time, Age

• Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.

  Jonathan Swift

  Birthday, People, Soul

• Say, Britain, could you ever boast, Three poets in an age at most? Our chilling climate hardly bears A sprig of bays in fifty years.

  Jonathan Swift

  Years, Age, Climate

  'On Poetry' (1733) l. 5

• Everyone desires long life, not one old age.

  Jonathan Swift

  Long, Age, Desire

• 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.

  Jonathan Swift

  Air, Age, May

  Jonathan Swift (2004). “A Modest Proposal and Other Prose”, p.61, Barnes & Noble Publishing

• Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine and women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age.

  Jonathan Swift

  Wine, Judging, Temptation

  Jonathan Swift (1861). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Cop'ous Notes and Additions”, p.612

• When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.

  Jonathan Swift

  Sacrifice, Men, Leaving

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan (1813). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift...”, p.365

• Every age might perhaps produce one or two geniuses, if they were not sunk under the censure and obloquy of plodding, servile, imitating pedants.

  Jonathan Swift

  Two, Age, Pedants

  Jonathan Swift (1761). “Works”, p.359

• There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Age, Six

• If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Criticism, Age

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.899, Delphi Classics

• The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age; but that of a good one will not reform it.

  Jonathan Swift

  Kings, Age, Example

• Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Long, Age

  'Thoughts on Various Subjects' (1706)

• 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.

  Jonathan Swift

  Taken, Age, Next

• Dignity, high station, or great riches, are in some sort necessary to old men, in order to keep the younger at a distance, who are otherwise too apt to insult them upon the score of their age.

  Jonathan Swift

  Distance, Men, Order

  Jonathan Swift (1841). “The works of Jonathan Swift, containing papers not hitherto publ. With memoir of the author by T. Roscoe”, p.306

• Had Windham possessed discretion in debate, or Sheridan in conduct, they might have ruled their age.

  Jonathan Swift

  Age, Might, Debate

• By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.

  Jonathan Swift

  Taken, Light, Age

• 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.

  Jonathan Swift

  Age, Succeed, Imagine

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Roscoe (1859). “The works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: with copious notes and additions and a memoir of the author”, p.273

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