Quotes by Jonathan Swift

About Jonathan Swift:

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Books, the children of the brain.

Jonathan Swift

These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critic: that he is a discoverer and collector of writers’ faults. Which may be farther put beyond dispute by the following demonstration: that whoever will examine the writings ...

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.

Jonathan Swift

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

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.

Jonathan Swift

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.

Jonathan Swift

Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

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.

Jonathan Swift

Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

May you live all the days of your life.

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.

Jonathan Swift

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

Jonathan Swift

Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind.

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Jonathan Swift

Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.

Jonathan Swift

Author Bio

  • NameJonathan Swift
  • DescriptionAnglo-Irish satirist, essayist, poet, etc.
  • BornNovember 30, 1667
  • DiedOctober 19, 1745
  • CountryKingdom Of Ireland
  • ProfessionPoet; Novelist; Satirist; Philosopher; Human Rights Activist
  • WorksGulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal; A Tale Of A Tub