Jonathan Swift quotes - page 8

What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly. (Jonathan Swift)
'Tis very warm weather when one's in bed.
Jonathan Swift
Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine and women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age.
Jonathan Swift
All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.
Jonathan Swift
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
Observation is an old man's memory.
Jonathan Swift
I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.
Jonathan Swift
Happiness is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
Jonathan Swift
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
You have but a very few years to be young and handsome in the eyes of the world; and as few months ro be so in the eyes of a husband, who is not a fool;..
Jonathan Swift
A political lie is sometimes born out of a discarded statesman's head, and thence delivered to be nursed and dandled by the rabble. Sometimes it is produced a monster, and licked into shape: at other times it comes into the world completely formed, and is spoiled in the licking. It is often born an infant in the regular way, and requires time to mature it; and often it sees the light in its full growth, but dwindles away by degrees. Sometimes it is of noble birth; and sometimes the spawn of a stock-jobber. Here it screams aloud at the opening of the womb; and there it is delivered with a whisper. I know a lie, that now disturbs half the kingdom with its noise, which, although too proud and great at present to own its parents, I can remember its whisperhood. To conclude the nativity of this monster; when it comes into the world without a sting, it is still-born; and whenever it loses its sting, it dies. (Jonathan Swift)
Few lies carry the inventor's mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth, may spread a thousand without being known for the author: besides, as the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his believers: and it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falshood flies, and truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect: like a man, who has thought of a good repartee, when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who has found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.
Jonathan Swift
Elephants are always drawn smaller than life, but a flea always larger.
Jonathan Swift
But a broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head; and pray what is a man but a topsy-turvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, his head where his heels should be, grovelling on the earth? And yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances, rakes into every slut's corner of nature, bringing hidden corruptions to the light, and raises a mighty dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away. His last days are spent in slavery to women, and generally the least deserving; till, worn to the stumps, like his brother besom, he is either kicked out of doors, or made use of to kindle flames for others to warm themselves by.
Jonathan Swift
As universal a practice as lying is, and as easy a one as it seems, I do not remember to have heard three good lies in all my conversation...
Jonathan Swift
It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles: the less they have in them the more noise they make in pouring it out.
Jonathan Swift
There is one essential point, wherein a political liar differs from others of the faculty; that he ought to have but a short memory, which is necessary, according to the various occasions he meets with every hour of differing from himself, and swearing to both sides of a contradiction, as he finds the persons disposed with whom he has to deal.
Jonathan Swift
All great changes have the same effects upon commonwealths, that thunder has upon liquors, making the dregs fly up to the top; the lowest plebeians rise to the head of affairs, and there preserve themselves, by representing the nobles, and other friends to the old government, as enemies to the publick.
Jonathan Swift
A copy of verses kept in the cabinet, and only shown to a few friends, is like a virgin much sought after and admired; but when printed and published, is like a common whore, whom any body may purchase for half a crown.
Jonathan Swift
Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. the clerks in [Lord Bolingbroke's] office used a sort of ivory knife with a blunt edge to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only requiring a steady hand; whereas if they should make use of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the crease and disfigure the paper.
Jonathan Swift
As little respect as I have for the generality of your sex... in a separate club entertain each other with the price and choice of lace and silk, and what dresses they liked or disapproved at the church or the playhouse. And when you are among yourselves, how naturally, after the first compliments, do you apply your hands to each others lappets, and ruffles, and mantuas; as if the whole business of your lives, and the publick concern of the world, depended upon the cut or colour of your dress. as it is the usual custom, and consult with the woman, who sits next her, about a new cargo of fans. I know very well, that those who are commonly called learned women, have lost all manner of credit by their impertinent talkativeness and conceit of themselves;.. (Jonathan Swift)
A footman's hat should fly off to every body; and therefore Mercury, who was Jupiter's footman, had wings fastened to his cap.
Jonathan Swift
To be vain, is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in telling what honours have been done them, what great company they have kept, and the like, by which they plainly confess that these honours were more than their due, and such as their friends would not believe, if they had not been told: whereas a man truly proud, thinks the greatest honours below his merit, and consequently scorns to boast.
Jonathan Swift
Princes in their infancy, childhood, and youth, are said to discover prodigious parts and wit, to speak things that surprise and astonish; strange, so many hopeful princes* and so many shameful kings ! If they happen to die young, they would have been prodigies of wisdom and virtue : if they live, they are often prodigies indeed, but of another sort.
Jonathan Swift
The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words; for whoever is a master of language, and has a mind full of ideas, will be apt in speaking to hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers 'have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in; and these are always ready at the mouth : so people come faster out of a church when it is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door.
Jonathan Swift