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
age succeed imagine
I cannot imagine why we should be at the expense to furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former have made no sort of provision for ours.
vanity temptation natural
Vanity is a natural object of temptation to a woman.
running style term
The scholars of Ireland seem not to have the least conception of style, but run on in a flat phraseology, often mingled with barbarous terms.
perfection simplicity style
Simplicity, without which no human performance can arrive at perfection.
forever might tongue
An English tongue, if refined to a certain standard, might perhaps be fixed forever.
happiness men perfect
So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men that they will grasp at all, and can form no scheme of perfect happiness with less.
greatness painful neighbor
Great abilities, when employed as God directs, do but make the owners of them greater and more painful servants to their neighbors.
hands government may
It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.
ambition government sacred
Hereditary right should be kept sacred, not from any inalienable right in a particular family, but to avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of competitors.
friends enemy misfortunes
Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.
pride men knowing
Pride, ill nature, and want of sense are the three great sources of ill manners; without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.
love men desire
In men desire begets love, and in women love begets desire.
memories two stories
Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.
ruins manners states
The ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion.