Jonathan Swift Quotes - Page 10

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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

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In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends; While Nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us.

Jonathan Swift

Adversity, Ease, Firsts

'Verses on the Death of Dr Swift' (1731) l. 7

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The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.

Jonathan Swift

Spring, Mean, Rivers

Jonathan Swift, John Hawkesworth (1755). “The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: Accurately Revised in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper-plates : with Some Account of the Author's Life and Notes Historical and Explanatory”, p.202

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For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.

Jonathan Swift

Light, Two, Differences

The Battle of the Books (1704) See Matthew Arnold 27

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Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.

Jonathan Swift

Friends, Enemy, Misfortunes

Jonathan Swift, “Verses On The Death Of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D.”

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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.

Jonathan Swift

Strong, Believe, Army

Jonathan Swift (1857). “The works of Dean Swift: comprising A tale of a tub, The battle of the books, with thoughts and essays on various subjects, together with The Dean's advice to a young lady on her marriage”, p.250

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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

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The sciences are found, like Hercules's oxen, by tracing them backward; and old sciences are unravelled like old stockings, by beginning at the foot.

Jonathan Swift

Science, Oxen, Feet

Jonathan Swift (1803). “The Works”, p.388

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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.

Jonathan Swift

War, Differences, Long

Jonathan Swift (2013). “The Very Best of Jonathan Swift In Plain and Simple English (Translated)”, p.395, BookCaps Study Guides

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No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before.

Jonathan Swift

Time, People, Giving

Jonathan Swift, John Hawkesworth (1755). “The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: Accurately Revised in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper-plates : with Some Account of the Author's Life and Notes Historical and Explanatory”, p.222

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God hath intended our passions to prevail over reason.

Jonathan Swift

Passion, Reason

Thoughts on Religion (1765)

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... the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion ... that is to say all those who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers.

Jonathan Swift

Atheist, Names, Atheism

Jonathan Swift, John Hawkesworth (1755). “The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: Accurately Revised in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper-plates : with Some Account of the Author's Life and Notes Historical and Explanatory”, p.56

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Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !

Jonathan Swift

Genius, Prodigies, Last Words

Jonathan Swift (1998). “The Sayings of Jonathan Swift”, p.44, Gerald Duckworth & Co

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I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.

Jonathan Swift

Race, Gulliver, Earth

Gulliver's Travels "A Voyage to Brobdingnag" ch. 6 (1726)

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It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.

Jonathan Swift

Mistake, Coffee, Echoes

Jonathan Swift, Sir Walter Scott (1824). “-5. Tracts, historical and political, during the reign of Queen Anne”, p.365

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So, naturalists observe, a flea; Hath smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum.

Jonathan Swift

Fleas, Ems, Mathematics

On Poetry" l. 337 (1733)

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Orators inflame the people, whose anger is really but a short fit of madness.

Jonathan Swift

People, Madness, Fit

Jonathan Swift, Deane Swift, Thomas Birch, Thomas Wilkes, Thomas Hawkesworth (1768). “The Works of the Reverend Dr. Jonathan Swift: Miscellanies in prose”, p.250

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A stander-by may sometimes, perhaps, see more of the game than he that plays it.

Jonathan Swift

Games, Play, May

Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols (1801). “Miscellaneous pieces”, p.4

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The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides.

Jonathan Swift

Running, Oil, Sides

Jonathan Swift, “A Description Of A City Shower”

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Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.

Jonathan Swift

Hate, Animal, Men

Letter to Alexander Pope, 29 Sept. 1725

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Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own; can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book; convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.

Jonathan Swift

Book, Looks, Scandal

'The Journal of a Modern Lady' (1729) l. 188

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

Jonathan Swift

Forever, Age, Want

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When you set about your composing, it may be necessary for your ease, and better distillation of wit, to put on your worst clothes, and the worse the better; for an author, like a limbeck, will yield the better for having a rag about him: besides that, I have observed a gardener cut the outward rind of a tree (which is the surtout of it) to make it bear well; and this is a natural account of the usual poverty of poets, and is an argument why wits, of all men living, ought to be ill clad.

Jonathan Swift

Cutting, Men, Clothes

Jonathan Swift (1812). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ...: With Notes, Historical and Critical”, p.73

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Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.

Jonathan Swift

Wall, Real, Reflection

Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols (1808). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ...: With Notes, Historical and Critical”, p.304

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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.

Jonathan Swift

Home, Men, House

'The Drapier's Letters' (1724) no. 2 (4 August 1724)

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Born: November 30, 1667
Died: October 19, 1745
Occupation: Pamphleteer
Cite this Page: Citation

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