Quotes from Jonathan Swift

I have always a sacred veneration for anyone I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher.

There was all the world and his wife.

I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.

The sight of you is good for sore eyes.

Not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.

I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or by water.

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.

For conversation well endu'd;She calls it witty to be rude;And, placing raillery in railing,Will tell aloud your greatest failing.

It is pleasant to observe, how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. Future ages shall talk of this; this shall be famous to all posterity. Whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.

You were half seas over.

As boys do sparrows, with flinging salt upon their tails.

She watches him, as a cat would watch a mouse.

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

I told him… that we ate when we were not hungry, and drank without the provocation of thirst.

'Tis very warm weather when one's in bed.

She's no chicken; she's on the wrong side of thirty, if she be a day.

Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby that we must take time by the forelock; for, when it is once past, there is no recalling it.

We were to do more business after dinner; but after dinner is after dinner—an old saying and a true, "much drinking, little thinking."

I said the thing which was not. (For they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood.)

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?

Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.

Faith he must make his stories shorter Or change his comrades once a quarter.

How is it possible to expect mankind to take advice when they will not so much as take warning

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