Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swiftwas an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth30 November 1667
CountryIreland
father good-woman cows
Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.
conceited well-said wells
Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
wine drunk should
This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk.
atheist names atheism
... the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion ... that is to say all those who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers.
taken heaven atheism
Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.
class firsts titles
It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.
food sea swim
They say fish should swim thrice * * * first it should swim in the sea (do you mind me?) then it should swim in butter, and at last, sirrah, it should swim in good claret.
memories men literature
Observation is an old man's memory.
dirty men masters
Hail, follow, well met, All dirty and wet: Find out, if you can, Who's master, who's man.
cutting razors lost
It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.
heaven ignorant
What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.
moon advice forget
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.
kings age reform
The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age; but that of a good one will not reform it.
two age might
Every age might perhaps produce one or two geniuses, if they were not sunk under the censure and obloquy of plodding, servile, imitating pedants.