Jonathan Swift Quotes

No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.

Faith he must make his stories shorter Or change his comrades once a quarter.

I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.

I should perhaps like others have astonished you with strange improbable tales; but I rather chose to relate plain matter of fact in the simplest manner and style; because my principal design was to inform you, and not to amuse you.

The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.

However, in my thoughts I could not sufficiently wonder at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals, who durst venture to mount and walk upon my body, while one of my hands was at liberty, without trembling at the very sight of so prodigious a creature as I must appear to them.

Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.

How is it possible to expect mankind to take advice when they will not so much as take warning.

But he may please to consider, that the caprices of womankind are not limited by any climate or nation; and that they are much more uniform than can be easily imagined.

I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs. I could only look upwards; the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me; but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky.

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

Caesar freely confessed to me, that the greatest actions of his own life were not equal, by many degrees, to the glory of taking it away.

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

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

Now, in this case, I, who am the right owner, lie under two great disadvantages: first, my lawyer, being practised almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out of his element when he would be an advocate for justice, which is an unnatural office he always attempts with great awkwardness, if not with ill-will.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.

He said, my discourse was all very strange, but especially the last part; for he could not understand, why nature should teach us to conceal what nature had given; that neither himself nor family were ashamed of any parts of their bodies; but, however, I might do as I pleased.

They bury their dead with their heads directly downward, because they hold an opinion, that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again; in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at their resurrection, be found ready standing on their feet.

I swam as fortune directed me, and.

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet, when we want shoes.