Jonathan Swift Quotes - Page 8

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• If it were a rainy day, a drunken vigil, a fit of the spleen, a course of physic, sleepy Sunday, an ill run at dice, a long tailor's bill, a beggar's purse, a factious head, a hot sun, costive diet, want of books, and a just contempt for learning - but for these. . .the number of authors and of writing would dwindle away to a degree most woeful to behold.

  Jonathan Swift

  Running, Book, Writing

  8 Copy quote

• A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.

  Jonathan Swift

  Love, Book, Passion

  Jonathan Swift, Deane Swift, Thomas Birch, Thomas Wilkes, Thomas Hawkesworth (1768). “The Works of the Reverend Dr. Jonathan Swift: Miscellanies in prose”, p.366

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• How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.

  Jonathan Swift

  Passion, Men, Wavering

  Jonathan Swift (1761). “The Works ...: With the Author's Life and Character, Notes [etc.] In Eight Volumes”, p.262

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• It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us; it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.

  Jonathan Swift

  Weed, Mind, Fields

  Jonathan Swift (1843). “Works: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers Not Hitherto Published”, p.836

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• Exploding many things under the name of trifles is a very false proof either of wisdom or magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions with regard to fame.

  Jonathan Swift

  Names, Action, Fame

  Jonathan Swift (1861). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Cop'ous Notes and Additions”, p.612

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• A stander-by may sometimes, perhaps, see more of the game than he that plays it.

  Jonathan Swift

  Games, Play, May

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols (1801). “Miscellaneous pieces”, p.4

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• What some people invent the rest enlarge.

  Jonathan Swift

  People, Invention

  6 Copy quote

• Bachelor's fare: bread and cheese, and kisses.

  Jonathan Swift

  Food, Kissing, Cooking

  Jonathan Swift, John Hawkesworth (1778). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Notes Historical and Critical”, p.182

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• Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.

  Jonathan Swift

  Profound, Understanding, Literature

  Jonathan Swift (2004). “A Modest Proposal and Other Prose”, p.57, Barnes & Noble Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.

  Jonathan Swift

  Food, Kitchen

  Jonathan Swift (1738). “A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation: According to the Most Polite Mode and Method Now Used at Court, and in the Best Companies of England”, p.154

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• Come, agree, the law's costly.

  Jonathan Swift

  Funny, Humor, Law

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• So geographers, in Africa maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er uninhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns

  Jonathan Swift

  Elephants, Savages, Maps

  60 Copy quote

• Whoe'er excels in what we prize,
  Appears a hero in our eyes;
  Each girl, when pleased with what is taught,
  Will have the teacher in her thought.
  . . . .
  A blockhead with melodious voice,
  In boarding-schools may have his choice.

  Jonathan Swift

  Girl, Teacher, Teaching

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Roscoe (1843). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.681

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• If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste.

  Jonathan Swift

  Fall, Giving, Cooking

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Roscoe (1859). “The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: With Copious Notes and Additions and a Memoir of the Author”, p.114

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• There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.

  Jonathan Swift

  Mistake, Literature

  Jonathan Swift, Sir Walter Scott (1814). “The Works of Jonathan Swift: Miscellaneous essays”, p.214

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• No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.

  Jonathan Swift

  Wise, Country, Men

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Roscoe (1859). “The works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: with copious notes and additions and a memoir of the author”, p.149

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• I have now lost my barrier between me and death; God grant I may live to be as well prepared for it, as I confidently believe her to have been! If the way to Heaven be through piety, truth, justice and charity, she is there.

  Jonathan Swift

  Believe, Justice, Heaven

  Jonathan Swift (1808). “Works”, p.105

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• 'Tis happy for him that his Father was born before him.

  Jonathan Swift

  Father, Conversation, Polite

  "Parodies, Hoaxes, Mock Treatises: Polite Conversation, Directions to Servants and Other Works".

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• I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contribute to our present misery, than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would contribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harvest, although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life.

  Jonathan Swift

  War, Fire, Water

  Jonathan Swift (1841). “The works of Jonathan Swift, containing papers not hitherto publ. With memoir of the author by T. Roscoe”, p.98

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• Who can deny that all men are violent lovers of the truth, when we see them so positive in their errors, which they will maintain out of their zeal for truth, although they contradict themselves every day of their lives.

  Jonathan Swift

  Mistake, Men, Errors

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

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• If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning etc., beginning from his youth, and so go to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last.

  Jonathan Swift

  Love, Learning, Men

  Jonathan Swift (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jonathan Swift (Illustrated)”, p.895, Delphi Classics

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

  Jonathan Swift

  Judging, Age, Literature

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• Philosophy! the lumber of the schools.

  Jonathan Swift

  Philosophy, School, Lumber

  'Ode to Sir W. Temple' (1692)

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• Strange an astrologer should die, without one wonder in the sky.

  Jonathan Swift

  Sky, Astrology, Strange

  Jonathan Swift (1860). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Copious Notes and Additions, and a Memoir of the Author”, p.242

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• 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

  Summer, War, Science

  Gulliver's Travels "A Voyage to Laputa, etc." ch. 5 (1726)

  35 Copy quote

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