Quotes from Jonathan Swift

My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons.

May you live every day of your life.

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.

They say fish should swim thrice * * * first it should swim in the sea (do you mind me?) then it should swim in butter, and at last, sirrah, it should swim in good claret.

This is every cook's opinion - no savory dish without an onion, but lest your kissing should be spoiled your onions must be fully boiled.

Pray steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's, Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies.

When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we be pleased or not.

Come, agree, the law's costly.

Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.

Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.

As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.

I have almost done with harridans, and shall soon become old enough to fall in love with girls of fourteen

Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.

Venus, a beautiful, good-natured lady, was the goddess of love; Juno, a terrible shrew, the goddess of marriage; and they were always mortal enemies

Your notions of friendship are new to me; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well know to whom I would give the first place in my friendship, but they are not in the way, I am condemned to another scene, and therefore I distribute it in pennyworths to those about me, and who displease me least, and should do the same to my fellow prisoners if I were condemned to a jail.