Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift Quotes

Pamphleteer

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsLiteratureAgeWorldShouldMayReasonKnowsWellsLawWiseWitBookGivingIllPersonsTwoCompanyHas Beens

Famous Jonathan Swift Quotes

“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.”

FiguresSkillsManagementIllVicesManageVanityFollyNiceties
Book: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
Create image

“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.”

MeanStatesTurnsFateTaughtPrideKingsEmptyBreathsIllHonourBubblesTidesDirtFloatsDukesSprungRebukeVery Mean
Book:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift...
Create image

“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.”

MenWellsMayNaturalPovertyCuttingTreeWorstPoetBearsOughtClothesArgumentAccountsIllWitEaseYieldUsualGardenerComposingRagsDistillation
Book:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ...: With Notes, Historical and Critical
Create image

“If it were a rainy day, a drunken vigil, a fit of the spleen, a course of physic, sleepy Sunday, an ill run at dice, a long tailor's bill, a beggar's purse, a factious head, a hot sun, costive diet, want of books, and a just contempt for learning - but for these. . .the number of authors and of writing would dwindle away to a degree most woeful to behold.”

IfsWantWritingLongBookRunningCoursesNumbersSunFitDegreesHotBillsIllDietsSundayContemptBeggarPursesRainyRainy DayDiceSleepyTailorsSpleenHot Sun
Author:Jonathan Swift
Create image