1667-1745, Anglo-Irish Satirist
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 – [Swearing]
A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.
Jonathan Swift – [Money]
All human race would be wits. And millions miss, for one that hits.
Jonathan Swift – [Jokes and Jokers]
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 – [Strength]
Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.
Jonathan Swift – [Ambition]
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 – [Ecology]
Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as in books it is generally the worst sort of reading.
Jonathan Swift – [Argument]
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 – [Blush]
As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.
Jonathan Swift – [Love]
Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.
Jonathan Swift – [Alcohol and Alcoholism]
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 – [Self-improvement]
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
Jonathan Swift – [Censure]
Come, agree, the law's costly.
Jonathan Swift – [Law Suits]
Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives.
Jonathan Swift – [Complaints and Complaining]
Don't set your wit against a child.
Jonathan Swift – [Parents and Parenting]
Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
Jonathan Swift – [Age and Aging]
Faith! he must make his stories shorter or change his comrades once a quarter.
Jonathan Swift – [Anecdotes]
For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
Jonathan Swift – [Culture]
Happiness is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
Jonathan Swift – [Happiness]
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.
Jonathan Swift – [Science and Scientists]