Jonathan Swift Quotes - Page 12

Quotes about:

• In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.

  Jonathan Swift

  Art, Oratory, Public Speaking

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols (1801). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin”, p.8

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• There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof, I hope, there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am not understood, it shall be concluded, that something very useful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentence is printed in a different character, shall be judged to contain something extraordinary either or wit of sublime.

  Jonathan Swift

  Character, Profound, Sublime

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.26, Delphi Classics

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• An English tongue, if refined to a certain standard, might perhaps be fixed forever.

  Jonathan Swift

  Forever, Might, Tongue

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• The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

  Jonathan Swift

  Success, Congratulations, Sadness

  Jonathan Swift, Sir Walter Scott (1814). “The Works of Jonathan Swift: Miscellaneous essays”, p.436

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• The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.

  Jonathan Swift

  Style, Literature, Definitions

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

  Jonathan Swift

  Funny, Friendship, Dog

  Jonathan Swift (1860). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Copious Notes and Additions, and a Memoir of the Author”, p.449

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• 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.

  Jonathan Swift

  Children, Winter, Two

  1729 A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or Country.

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• A traveler's chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad-as well as good example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Mind, Example

  Jonathan Swift (2005). “Gulliver's Travels - Literary Touchstone Edition”, p.253, Prestwick House Inc

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• When any one person or body of men seize into their hands the power in the last resort, there is properly no longer a government, but what Aristotle and his followers call the abuse and corruption of one.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Hands, Abuse

  Jonathan Swift (1856). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.213

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• An atheist has got one point beyond the devil.

  Jonathan Swift

  Atheist, Infidelity, Devil

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• When a real genius appeares in this world, you'll know him by the fact that all the fools have allied against him.

  Jonathan Swift

  Real, Genius, World

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• Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.

  Jonathan Swift

  Flattery, Manners, Ill

  Jonathan Swift (1861). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Cop'ous Notes and Additions”, p.625

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• There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity; nor any which by ill management makes so contemptible a figure.

  Jonathan Swift

  Vanity, Skills, Vices

  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”

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• It is an uncontrolled truth, that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Talent, Figures

  Jonathan Swift, Sir Walter Scott (1824). “Epistolary correspondence. Letters from September 1725 to May 1732”, p.373

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

  Jonathan Swift

  Inspirational, Confidence, Tree

  In Sir Walter Scott 'Life of Swift'

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• I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.

  Jonathan Swift

  Bread, Quarrels, Bread And Butter

  1738 Polite Conversation, dialogue 1.

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• I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either.

  Jonathan Swift

  Taught Us, Opinion, Remember

  Jonathan Swift (2005). “Gulliver's Travels - Literary Touchstone Edition”, p.233, Prestwick House Inc

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• Seamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship.

  Jonathan Swift

  Hands, Whales, Amusement

  Jonathan Swift, William Wotton (1811). “A tale of a tub,: written for the universal improvement of mankind. To which is added, An account of a battle between the ancient and modern books in St. James's Library”, p.43

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• Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.

  Jonathan Swift

  Satire, Offence

  'A Tale of a Tub' (1704) 'The Author's Preface'

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

  Jonathan Swift

  Writing, Light, Rising

  'On Poetry' (1733) l. 85

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• Apollo was held the god of physic and sender of disease. Both were originally the same trade, and still continue.

  Jonathan Swift

  Apollo, Disease, Trade

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Roscoe (1859). “The works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: with copious notes and additions and a memoir of the author”, p.615

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• If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.

  Jonathan Swift

  Distance, Men, Comfort

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

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• The more careless, the more modish.

  Jonathan Swift

  Careless

  1738 Polite Conversation, dialogue 1.

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• Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Aeneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.

  Jonathan Swift

  Taken, Aeneas, Giving

  Jonathan Swift (2010). “The Battle of the Books: And Other Works, Including 'A Modest Proposal'”, p.187, The Floating Press

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• 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.

  Jonathan Swift

  Country, Men, Enemy

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