Quotes by Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

English writer

Lived from: 1667 - 1745

Category: Writers (Contemporary) Country: FlagUnited Kingdom

Born: 30 november 1667 Died: 19 october 1745

  • A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?
  • Nature has left every man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of shining in company; and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified for both who, by a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.
  • The most accomplished way of using books at present is to serve them as some do lords, learn their titles, and then boast of their acquaintance.
  • 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.
  • One of the very best rules of conversation is to never, say anything which any of the company wish had been left unsaid.
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  • A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • I have heard say that complimenting is lying.
    Polite conversation
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • If 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
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  • May you live all the days of your life.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • Whoever wishes to win in this game must have patience and money, since the values are so little constant and the rumors so little founded on truth Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • All human race would be wits. And millions miss, for one that hits.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • 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.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • 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.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as in books it is generally the worst sort of reading.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • Books, the children of the brain.
    A Tale of a Tub (1704)
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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  • Come, agree, the law's costly.
    ― Jonathan Swift
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Questions and Answers

What are the most famous quotes from Jonathan Swift?

The two most famous quotes from Jonathan Swift are:

  • "A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart."
  • "I have heard say that complimenting is lying."

When did Jonathan Swift live?

Jonathan Swift was born in 1667 and died in the year 1745.