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
bold eat man
He was a bold man that first eat on oyster.
bold eat food man
He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.
balanced degree equal fits next pain pleasure spending year
All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenues
leave passions stronger though weaker
Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after
greatest ignorance inventions printing produced
The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing
eradicate notion religion
Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudices, eradicate virtue, honesty, and religion
contented folly laughed men
Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly
definition places proper true words
Proper words in proper places make the true definition of style.
alone less man wise
A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone
broken promises
Promises and Pye-Crusts - are made to be broken
bell burden cart hear left rang start thunder
Deaf, giddy, helpless, left alone, To all my friends a burden grown; No more I hear my church's bell Than if it rang out for my knell; At thunder now no more I start Than at the rumbling of a cart
change comrades stories
Faith! He must make his stories shorter or change his comrades once a quarter.
writing light rising
Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline.
ad bite flea fleas hath proceed smaller
So, naturalists observe, a flea - Hath smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bite 'em; And so proceed ad infinitum