Jonathan Swift Quotes

1667–1745 Ireland

Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer and satirist. Acclaimed as one of the finest prose satirists in the English language, he was also well known for his poetry and essays.

Ireland
Essayists
Novelists
Poets
Satirists

Also known as: Johnathan Swift, Swift, Swift, Jonathan

Random Jonathan Swift quote

177 quotes

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

Polite Conversation (1738)

Fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives.

Polite Conversation (1738)

Sheperd: Thanks, gentle Echo, right thy answers tell,
What woman is, and how to guard her well.
Echo: Guard her well.

For, poems read without a name,
We justly praise, or justly blame;
And critics have no partial views,
Except they know whom they abuse.
And since you ne'er provoke their spite,
Depend upon't their judgment's right.

And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.

Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired: for in the course of things, men always grow vicious before they become unbelievers; but if you would once convince the town or country profligate, by topics drawn from the view of their own quiet, reputation, health, and advantage, their infidelity would soon drop off: This I confess is no easy task, because it is almost in a literal sense, to fight with beasts.

I 've often wish'd that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year;
A handsome house to lodge a friend;
A river at my garden's end;
A terrace walk, and half a rood
Of land set out to plant a wood.

I've often wished that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end,
A terrace walk, and half a rood
Of land, set out to plant a wood.

There was all the world and his wife.

Polite Conversation (1738)

There's two words to that bargain.

Polite Conversation (1738)

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.

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.

Disputed

There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.

Misattributed

As love without esteem is volatile and capricious; esteem without love is languid and cold.

Misattributed

I know nothing of music; I would not give a farthing for all the music in the universe.

Disputed

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

Disputed

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Misattributed

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Jonathan Swift (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.