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Jonathan Swift Quotes

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Jonathan Swift, born on November 30, 1667, and died on October 19, 1745, was an Irish writer, satirist, and politician, renowned for his satirical works.

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All Men Ifs Literature Age World Should May Reason Knows Wells Law Wise Wit Book Giving Ill Persons Two Company Has Beens

Famous Jonathan Swift Quotes

“A jargon form'd from the lost language, wit, Confounded in that Babel of the pit; Form'd by diseased conceptions, weak and wild, Sick lust of souls, and an abortive child; Born between whores and fops, by lewd compacts, Before the play, or else between the acts; Nor wonder, if from such polluted minds Should spring such short and transitory kinds.”

Ifs Should Mind Kind Children Soul Play Form Lost Language Born Wonder Spring Weak Sick Wit Lust Conception Pits Transitory Jargon Diseased Babel

Book:The Works of of the Rev. Jonathan Swift

Source: The Works of of the Rev. Jonathan Swift

“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.”

Lost Cutting Edges Wit Employed Razors

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)

“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.”

Heaven Hell Taken Wonderful Atheism Humour Circumstances Twenties Positive Atheism Wit Checks Word Of God Sacraments Heaven And Hell

Book:The Works of Jonathan Swift: Miscellaneous essays

Source: The Works of Jonathan Swift: Miscellaneous essays

“Abstracts, abridgments, summaries, etc., have the same use with burning-glasses,--to collect the diffused light rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination.”

Use Light Imagination Reader Glasses Wit Burning Etc Warmth Rays Summary Quickness

Author:Jonathan Swift

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

Men Play Might Virtue Drama Strikes Wit Passages Offensive Unbecoming

Author:Jonathan Swift

“I cannot imagine why we should be at the expense to furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former have made no sort of provision for ours.”

Should Made Age Imagine Succeed Wit Former Expenses Provision

Book:The works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: with copious notes and additions and a memoir of the author

Source: The works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: with copious notes and additions and a memoir of the author

“Perpetual aiming at wit is a very bad part of conversation. It is done to support a character: it generally fails; it is a sort of insult on the company, and a restraint upon the speaker.”

Done Character Company Support Failing Conversation Wit Insult Speakers Perpetual Restraint

Author:Jonathan Swift

“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.”

Source: The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ...: With Notes, Historical and Critical

“Don't set your wit against a child.”

Children Literature Education Teacher Wit

Book:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ... : with Notes, Historical and Critical

Source: The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ... : with Notes, Historical and Critical

“We of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking.”

Thinking Age Reading Criticism Method Wit Scholar Fatigue Prudent

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)

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.”

Men Past Poetry Hours Talking Fire Wit Fancy Pens Prime Muse Rhyme Jade

Book:Select poems of Prior and Swift [ed. by C. Bathurst].

Source: Select poems of Prior and Swift [ed. by C. Bathurst].

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

Humans Would Be Race Millions Missing Wit Human Race

Book:The works of Jonathan Swift ...: with copious notes and additions, and a memoir of the author

Source: The works of Jonathan Swift ...: with copious notes and additions, and a memoir of the author

“There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof, I hope, there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am not understood, it shall be concluded, that something very useful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentence is printed in a different character, shall be judged to contain something extraordinary either or wit of sublime.”

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)

“'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.”

Men School Bits Fool Cooking Wit Now And Then Flattery Maxims

Book:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin

Source: The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin

“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.”

Ifs Knows Men Age Next He Man Genius Criticism Critics Complaining Wit Resolve

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)