Jonathan Swift Quotes - Page 9

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• Come hither, all ye empty things,
  Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of Kings;
  Who float upon the tide of state,
  Come hither, and behold your fate.
  Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
  How very mean a thing's a Duke;
  From all his ill-got honours flung,
  Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.

  Jonathan Swift

  Kings, Mean, Fate

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan (1812). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift...”, p.283

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• Pride, ill nature, and want of sense are the three great sources of ill manners; without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.

  Jonathan Swift

  Pride, Men, Knowing

  Jonathan Swift (1861). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Cop'ous Notes and Additions”, p.621

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• My hunger serves me instead of a clock.

  Jonathan Swift

  Hunger, Clock

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• Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.

  Jonathan Swift

  Alcohol, Liquor, Lost

  Jonathan Swift (1761). “The Works of Dr Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin. Accurately Corrected by the Best Editions. With the Author's Life and Character; Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory; Tables of Contents, and Indexes. More Complete Than Any Preceding Edition. In Eight Volumes”, p.322

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• 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.

  Jonathan Swift

  Bible, Running, Writing

  Jonathan Swift (1803). “The Works”, p.55

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• Love why do we one passion call,
  When 'tis a compound of them all?
  Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet,
  In all their equipages meet;
  Where pleasures mix'd with pains appear,
  Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.

  Jonathan Swift

  Love, Sweet, Pain

  Jonathan Swift (1843). “Works: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers Not Hitherto Published”, p.681

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• Hereditary right should be kept sacred, not from any inalienable right in a particular family, but to avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of competitors.

  Jonathan Swift

  Ambition, Government, Sacred

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• What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.

  Jonathan Swift

  Heaven, Ignorant, Literature

  'Thoughts on Various Subjects' (1706).

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• When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we be pleased or not.

  Jonathan Swift

  Friendship, Difficult, Not Friends

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

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• The two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.

  Jonathan Swift

  Light, Two, Bees And Honey

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

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• They say fish should swim thrice * * * first it should swim in the sea (do you mind me?) then it should swim in butter, and at last, sirrah, it should swim in good claret.

  Jonathan Swift

  Food, Lakes, Sea

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• Rebukes are easy from our betters,
  From men of quality and letters;
  But when low dunces will affront,
  What man alive can stand the brunt?

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Quality, Alive

  Jonathan Swift, “The Sick Lion And The Ass”

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• It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.

  Jonathan Swift

  Eggs, Gulliver's Travels, Break

  Gulliver's Travels "A Voyage to Lilliput" ch. 4 (1726)

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• Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Advantage, States

  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.279

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• I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.

  Jonathan Swift

  Dog, Rain, Cat

  Jonathan Swift (1761). “The Works of Dr Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin. Accurately Corrected by the Best Editions. With the Author's Life and Character; Notes Historical, Critical, and Explanatory; Tables of Contents, and Indexes. More Complete Than Any Preceding Edition. In Eight Volumes”, p.331

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• The greatest Inventions were produced in Times of Ignorance; as the Use of the Compass, Gunpowder, and Printing; and by the dullest Nation, as the Germans.

  Jonathan Swift

  Ignorance, Science, Ignorant

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.894, Delphi Classics

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• Men of wit, learning and virtue might strike out every offensive or unbecoming passage from plays.

  Jonathan Swift

  Drama, Men, Play

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• I have always a sacred veneration for anyone I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher.

  Jonathan Swift

  Supposing That, Littles, Sacred

  Jonathan Swift (1861). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Cop'ous Notes and Additions”, p.593

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• If they would, for Example, praise the Beauty of a Woman, or any other Animal, they describe it by Rhombs, Circles, Parallelograms, Ellipses, and other geometrical terms.

  Jonathan Swift

  Beauty, Women, Math

  Jonathan Swift (1826). “Gulliver's Travels”

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• 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

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• Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.

  Jonathan Swift

  Time, Lasts, World

  Jonathan Swift, Sir Walter Scott (1814). “The Works of Jonathan Swift: Riddles [and poems] by Dr. Swift and his friends. Verses addressed to Swift and to his memory. Epistolary correspondence”, p.25

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• My horses understand me tolerably well; I converse with them at least four hours every day. They are strangers to bridle or saddle; they live in great amity with me, and friendship of each other.

  Jonathan Swift

  Horse, Four, Stranger

  Jonathan Swift (1826). “Gulliver's Travels”

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• Those dreams that on the silent night intrude, and with false flitting shapes our minds delude ... are mere productions of the brain. And fools consult interpreters in vain.

  Jonathan Swift

  Dream, Night, Mind

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• Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.

  Jonathan Swift

  Taken, Heaven, Atheism

  Jonathan Swift, Sir Walter Scott (1814). “The Works of Jonathan Swift: Miscellaneous essays”, p.392

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• For though, in nature, depth and height
  Are equally held infinite:
  In poetry, the height we know;
  'Tis only infinite below.

  Jonathan Swift

  Beauty, Art, Depth

  Jonathan Swift (1841). “The Works. Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published. With Memoir of the Author, by Thomas Roscoe. -London, Washbourne 1841”, p.654

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