Quotes from Jonathan Swift

Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own; can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book; convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.

One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.

Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.

The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance and never to keep his work.

We have enough religion to hate each other, but not enough to love each other.

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

What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.

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

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

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.

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

Books, the children of the brain.

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

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.

Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.

I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.

Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.

Every dog must have his day.

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

Proper words in proper places make the true definition of style.

The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting.