"It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind."

Swift, Jonathan on Death and Dying
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 4 fans >>

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same."

Swift, Jonathan on Disease
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman."

Swift, Jonathan on Doctors
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitch folk."

Swift, Jonathan on Dress
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."

Swift, Jonathan on Ecology
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good."

Swift, Jonathan on Enemies
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 3 fans >>

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Pretense is the overrating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to."

Swift, Jonathan on Exaggeration
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contribute to our present misery, than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would contribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harvest, although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life."

Swift, Jonathan on Famine
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"Your notions of friendship are new to me; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well know to whom I would give the first place in my friendship, but they are not in the way, I am condemned to another scene, and therefore I distribute it in pennyworths to those about me, and who displease me least, and should do the same to my fellow prisoners if I were condemned to a jail."

Swift, Jonathan on Friends and Friendship
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires."

Swift, Jonathan on Friends and Friendship
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

Swift, Jonathan on Genius
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

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

Swift, Jonathan on Age and Aging
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"No wise man ever wished to be younger."

Swift, Jonathan on Age and Aging
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 2 fans >>

"Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old."

Swift, Jonathan on Age and Aging
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"Better belly burst than good liquor be lost."

Swift, Jonathan on Alcohol and Alcoholism
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping."

Swift, Jonathan on Ambition
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"In church your grandsire cut his throat; to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my hearty vote to cut his throat before he married."

Swift, Jonathan on Ancestry
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"Faith! he must make his stories shorter or change his comrades once a quarter."

Swift, Jonathan on Anecdotes
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning."

Swift, Jonathan on Greatness
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"Happiness is a perpetual possession of being well deceived."

Swift, Jonathan on Happiness
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

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

Swift, Jonathan on Heaven
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 2 fans >>

"What some people invent the rest enlarge."

Swift, Jonathan on Humor
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

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

Swift, Jonathan on Invention and Inventor
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

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

Swift, Jonathan on Invention and Inventor
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"All human race would be wits. And millions miss, for one that hits."

Swift, Jonathan on Jokes and Jokers
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing."

Swift, Jonathan on Kisses and Kissing
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 4 fans >>

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are as slaves."

Swift, Jonathan on Law and Lawyers
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"Come, agree, the law's costly."

Swift, Jonathan on Law Suits
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"May you live all the days of your life."

Swift, Jonathan on Life and Living
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as in books it is generally the worst sort of reading."

Swift, Jonathan on Argument
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold."

Swift, Jonathan on Love
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 4 fans >>

"Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest."

Swift, Jonathan on Manners
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"Observation is an old man's memory."

Swift, Jonathan on Memory
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly."

Swift, Jonathan on Men
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake."

Swift, Jonathan on Mistakes
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart."

Swift, Jonathan on Money
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 1 fans >>

"Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance."

Swift, Jonathan on Nations
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with the public will convince them as he himself appears convinced."

Swift, Jonathan on Optimism
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"Don't set your wit against a child."

Swift, Jonathan on Parents and Parenting
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>

"In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained, the professors appearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their senses; which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favorites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services, of instructing princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employment persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive; and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth."

Swift, Jonathan on Politicians and Politics
Discuss quotations · Share quote · 0 fans >>