Jonathan Swift Quotes - Page 10

Quotes about:

• Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.

  Jonathan Swift

  Taken, Heaven, Atheism

  Jonathan Swift, Sir Walter Scott (1814). “The Works of Jonathan Swift: Miscellaneous essays”, p.392

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• Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.

  Jonathan Swift

  Time, Lasts, World

  Jonathan Swift, Sir Walter Scott (1814). “The Works of Jonathan Swift: Riddles [and poems] by Dr. Swift and his friends. Verses addressed to Swift and to his memory. Epistolary correspondence”, p.25

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• God hath intended our passions to prevail over reason.

  Jonathan Swift

  Passion, Reason

  Thoughts on Religion (1765)

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• My horses understand me tolerably well; I converse with them at least four hours every day. They are strangers to bridle or saddle; they live in great amity with me, and friendship of each other.

  Jonathan Swift

  Horse, Four, Stranger

  Jonathan Swift (1826). “Gulliver's Travels”

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• If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Criticism, Age

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.899, Delphi Classics

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• Those dreams that on the silent night intrude, and with false flitting shapes our minds delude ... are mere productions of the brain. And fools consult interpreters in vain.

  Jonathan Swift

  Dream, Night, Mind

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• For though, in nature, depth and height
  Are equally held infinite:
  In poetry, the height we know;
  'Tis only infinite below.

  Jonathan Swift

  Beauty, Art, Depth

  Jonathan Swift (1841). “The Works. Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published. With Memoir of the Author, by Thomas Roscoe. -London, Washbourne 1841”, p.654

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• When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.

  Jonathan Swift

  Sacrifice, Men, Leaving

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan (1813). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift...”, p.365

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• In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends; While Nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us.

  Jonathan Swift

  Adversity, Ease, Firsts

  'Verses on the Death of Dr Swift' (1731) l. 7

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• The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.

  Jonathan Swift

  Spring, Mean, Rivers

  Jonathan Swift, John Hawkesworth (1755). “The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: Accurately Revised in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper-plates : with Some Account of the Author's Life and Notes Historical and Explanatory”, p.202

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• Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.

  Jonathan Swift

  Friends, Enemy, Misfortunes

  Jonathan Swift, “Verses On The Death Of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D.”

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• 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

  Light, Two, Differences

  The Battle of the Books (1704) See Matthew Arnold 27

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• It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.

  Jonathan Swift

  Strong, Believe, Army

  Jonathan Swift (1857). “The works of Dean Swift: comprising A tale of a tub, The battle of the books, with thoughts and essays on various subjects, together with The Dean's advice to a young lady on her marriage”, p.250

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• What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.

  Jonathan Swift

  Friendship, Years, Age

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Roscoe (1843). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.764

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• The sciences are found, like Hercules's oxen, by tracing them backward; and old sciences are unravelled like old stockings, by beginning at the foot.

  Jonathan Swift

  Science, Oxen, Feet

  Jonathan Swift (1803). “The Works”, p.388

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• It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.

  Jonathan Swift

  Class, Titles, Firsts

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.16, Delphi Classics

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• Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent.

  Jonathan Swift

  War, Differences, Long

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “The Very Best of Jonathan Swift In Plain and Simple English (Translated)”, p.395, BookCaps Study Guides

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• ... the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion ... that is to say all those who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers.

  Jonathan Swift

  Atheist, Names, Atheism

  Jonathan Swift, John Hawkesworth (1755). “The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: Accurately Revised in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper-plates : with Some Account of the Author's Life and Notes Historical and Explanatory”, p.56

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• No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before.

  Jonathan Swift

  Time, People, Giving

  Jonathan Swift, John Hawkesworth (1755). “The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: Accurately Revised in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper-plates : with Some Account of the Author's Life and Notes Historical and Explanatory”, p.222

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• Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !

  Jonathan Swift

  Genius, Prodigies, Last Words

  Jonathan Swift (1998). “The Sayings of Jonathan Swift”, p.44, Gerald Duckworth & Co

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• 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.

  Jonathan Swift

  Race, Gulliver, Earth

  Gulliver's Travels "A Voyage to Brobdingnag" ch. 6 (1726)

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• It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.

  Jonathan Swift

  Mistake, Coffee, Echoes

  Jonathan Swift, Sir Walter Scott (1824). “-5. Tracts, historical and political, during the reign of Queen Anne”, p.365

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• So, naturalists observe, a flea; Hath smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum.

  Jonathan Swift

  Fleas, Ems, Mathematics

  On Poetry" l. 337 (1733)

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• Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.

  Jonathan Swift

  Flattery, Manners, Ill

  Jonathan Swift (1861). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Cop'ous Notes and Additions”, p.625

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• Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please; But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex.

  Jonathan Swift

  Sex, Anger, Delight

  Jonathan Swift (1803). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D. ... : with Notes, Historical and Critical”, p.187

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