Jonathan Swift quotes

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

Fingers were made before forks and hands before knives.

Jonathan Swift

When men grow virtuous in their old age they are merely making a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.

Jonathan Swift

Time stoops to no man's lure.

Jonathan Swift

Whatever you say against women, they are better creatures than men, for men were made of clay, but women were made of man.

Jonathan Swift

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.

Jonathan Swift

Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

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 fricassee, or a ragout.

Jonathan Swift

I row after health like a waterman.

Jonathan Swift

It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.

Jonathan Swift

May you live every day of your life.

Jonathan Swift

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

Jonathan Swift

Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.

Jonathan Swift

Some people take more care to hide their wisdom than their folly.

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

There is nothing in this world constant, but inconsistency.

Jonathan Swift

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Jonathan Swift

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.

Jonathan Swift

When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

Jonathan Swift

One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.

Jonathan Swift

Promises and pie crusts are made to be broken.

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

Jonathan Swift

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.

Jonathan Swift

Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices. So climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.

Jonathan Swift

Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as in books it is generally the worst sort of reading.

Jonathan Swift

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.

Jonathan Swift

Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.

Jonathan Swift

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

Jonathan Swift

Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.

Jonathan Swift

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

Jonathan Swift

Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived.

Jonathan Swift

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.

Jonathan Swift

I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

Jonathan Swift