“Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.”
“No wise man ever wished to be younger.”
“Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)
“I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.”
Source: The works of Jonathan Swift: containing interesting and valuable papers, not hitherto published ; with a memoir of the author
“Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together; Let none but Him who rules the thunder Put this man and woman asunder.”
“I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.”
“Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.”
“Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)
“Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.”
“It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)
“Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals, are in imitation of fighting.”
Source: The works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: with copious notes and additions and a memoir of the author
“No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.”
“Observation is an old man's memory.”
Source: 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
“Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.”
Source: The works of Jonathan Swift ...: with copious notes and additions, and a memoir of the author
“Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.”
“I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals: for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor Such-a-one, and Judge Such-a-one: so with physicians - I will not speak of my own trade - soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. This is the system upon which I have governed myself many years, but do not tell.”
Source: Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal
“If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)
“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.”
“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.”
“This made me reflect, how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)
“For poetry, he's past his prime,
He takes an hour to find a rhyme;
His fire is out, his wit decayed,
His fancy sunk, his muse a jade.
I'd have him throw away his pen,
But there's no talking to some men.”
Source: Select poems of Prior and Swift [ed. by C. Bathurst].
“The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.”
Source: The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: Carefully Selected; with a Biography of the Author
“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.”
Source: Works
“Who can deny that all men are violent lovers of the truth, when we see them so positive in their errors, which they will maintain out of their zeal for truth, although they contradict themselves every day of their lives.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)
“Love of flattery, in most men, proceeds from the mean opinion they have of themselves; in women, from the contrary.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)
“Nothing more unqualified the man to act with prudence than a misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt.”
Source: 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
“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.”
Source: 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
“If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning etc., beginning from his youth, and so go to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)
“The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men in the course of virtue, but seldom or ever reclaims the vicious.”
Source: The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing, I. His Miscellanies in prose. II. His poetical writings. III. The travels of Capt. Lemuel Gulliver. IV. Papers relating to Ireland, and The Drapier's letters. V. The conduct of the allies, and The examiners. VI. The publick spirit of the Whiggs, &c. with Polite conversation. VII. Letters to and from Dr. Swift. VIII. Directions to servants, sermons, poems, &c
“When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.”
Source: The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift...
“This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.”
Source: The works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: with copious notes and additions and a memoir of the author
“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.”
“For in that universal call,
Few bankers will to heaven be mounters;
They'll cry, "Ye shops, upon us fall!
Conceal and cover us, ye counters!
When other hands the scales shall hold,
And they, in men's and angels' sight
Produced with all their bills and gold,
'Weigh'd in the balance and found light!'”
Source: Historical tracts. Political poetry. Poems chiefly relating to Irish politics
“For want of a block, man will stumble at a straw.”
“'T is an old maxim in the schools, That flattery 's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit.”
Source: The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin
“Brutes find out where their talents lie; A bear will not attempt to fly, A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five barred gate. A dog by instinct turns aside Who sees the ditch too deep and wide, But man we find the only creature Who, led by folly, combats nature; Who, when she loudly cries-Forbear! With obstinacy fixes there; And where the genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs.”
“For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)
“In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man uncapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence.”
Source: Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal
“Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)
“It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.”
Source: The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Cop'ous Notes and Additions
“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.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)
“A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.”
“Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.”
“Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.”
“Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.”
Source: The works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: with copious notes and additions and a memoir of the author
“I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.”
Source: The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: Carefully Selected; with a Biography of the Author
“Dignity, high station, or great riches, are in some sort necessary to old men, in order to keep the younger at a distance, who are otherwise too apt to insult them upon the score of their age.”
Source: The works of Jonathan Swift, containing papers not hitherto publ. With memoir of the author by T. Roscoe
“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.”
Source: The works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: with copious notes and additions and a memoir of the author
“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?”
