Jonathan Swift Quotes - Page 13

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

  Jonathan Swift

  Young, Worst, Company

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols (1801). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin”, p.221

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

  Jonathan Swift

  Taken, Light, Age

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• Unjustly poets we asperse: Truth shines the brighter clad in verse, And all the fictions they pursue Do but insinuate what is true.

  Jonathan Swift

  Shining, Fiction, Poet

  Jonathan Swift (1860). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Copious Notes and Additions, and a Memoir of the Author”, p.430

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• Atlas, we read in ancient song, Was so exceeding tall and strong, He bore the skies upon his back, Just as the pedler does his pack; But, as the pedler overpress'd Unloads upon a stall to rest, Or, when he can no longer stand, Desires a friend to lend a hand, So Atlas, lest the ponderous spheres Should sink, and fall about his ears, Got Hercules to bear the pile, That he might sit and rest awhile.

  Jonathan Swift

  Song, Strong, Fall

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.3013, Delphi Classics

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• It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.

  Jonathan Swift

  Cutting, Razors, Lost

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.27, Delphi Classics

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• 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

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• 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.

  Jonathan Swift

  Rain, Cat, Tumbling Down

  Jonathan Swift (1860). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Copious Notes and Additions, and a Memoir of the Author”, p.246

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• hoever wishes to win in this game must have patience and money, since the values are so little constant and the rumors so little founded on truth Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

  Jonathan Swift

  Money, Art, Winning

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• 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

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Prudes, Looks

  Jonathan Swift, John Arbuthnot, Alexander Pope, John Gay (1742). “Miscellanies. In Four Volumes”, p.183

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

  Jonathan Swift

  Mean, Men, Opinion

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.898, Delphi Classics

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• Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals, are in imitation of fighting.

  Jonathan Swift

  Children, Fighting, Animal

  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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• 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.

  Jonathan Swift

  Book, Omission, Authorship

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• A fig for partridges and quails, ye dainties I know nothing of ye; But on the highest mount in Wales Would choose in peace to drink my coffee.

  Jonathan Swift

  Coffee, Drink, Quails

  Jonathan Swift, Sir Walter Scott (1814). “The Works of Jonathan Swift: Containing Additional Letters, Tracts, and Poems Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author”, p.435

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• There is no talent so useful toward rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of men, and in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, People, Giving

  Jonathan Swift (1856). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.206

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• I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own; where the law hath not been able to find an expedient.

  Jonathan Swift

  Law, Evil, Bully

  Jonathan Swift (1772). “The Works of the Reverend Dr. Jonathan Swift ...”

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• Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination.

  Jonathan Swift

  Business, Men, Imagination

  Jonathan Swift (1761). “Works”, p.301

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• Silks, velvets, calicoes, and the whole lexicon of female fopperies.

  Jonathan Swift

  Fashion, Female, Velvet

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.1604, Delphi Classics

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• Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind.

  Jonathan Swift

  Fate, Wind, Should

  Jonathan Swift (1860). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Copious Notes and Additions, and a Memoir of the Author”, p.507

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• Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please; But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex.

  Jonathan Swift

  Sex, Anger, Delight

  Jonathan Swift (1803). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ... : with Notes, Historical and Critical”, p.187

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• Surely mortal man is a broomstick!

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Broomsticks, Mortals

  1710 A Meditation upon a Broomstick.

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• A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious and low.

  Jonathan Swift

  Romance, Ingredients, Degenerates

  Jonathan Swift (1861). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Cop'ous Notes and Additions”, p.582

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• Nothing more unqualified the man to act with prudence than a misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Guilt, Unqualified

  Jonathan Swift (1752). “The works of D. Jonathan Swift ...: To which is prefixed, the doctor's life, with remarks on his writings, from the Earl of Orrery and others, not to be found in any former edition of his works.Dublin printed”, p.281

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

  Jonathan Swift

  Animal, Air, Tongue

  Jonathan Swift (1861). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Cop'ous Notes and Additions”, p.610

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

  Jonathan Swift

  Lying, Bears, Talent

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols (1801). “Poems, Polite convesation, etc”, p.166

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• There seems to be no part of knowledge in fewer hands than that of discerning when to have done.

  Jonathan Swift

  Hands, Done, Fewer

  Jonathan Swift, Paul Anton Fedor Constantin POSSART (1831). “A Tale of a Tub and the Battle of the Books ... Mit Anmerkungen herausgegeben von P. A. Fedor Possart”, p.114

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