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
eating lord feds
Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer; I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.
confidence tree dies
I shall be like that tree-I shall die at the top.
stars distance future
They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve around Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost five: the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half, so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distances from the center of Mars; which evidently shews them to be governed by the same Law of Gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.
summer air august
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.
hands knives eating
They say fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives.
poppies praise infusion
All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.
life tragedy life-is
Life is a tragedy wherein we sit as spectators for a while and then act our part in it.
beauty art height
For though, in nature, depth and height Are equally held infinite: In poetry, the height we know; 'Tis only infinite below.
littles body goodness
She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body.
sarcasm men vices
It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.
delicacy may judgment
A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?
greed vices humankind
There is no vice which humankind carries to such wild extremes as that of avarice.
kind rating pedantry
Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.
bread quarrels bread-and-butter
I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.