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
taken aeneas giving
Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Aeneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.
degrees bulls mouths
What we call the Irish Brogue is no sooner discovered, than it makes the deliverer, in the last degree, ridiculous and despised; and, from such a mouth, an Englishman expects nothing but bulls, blunders, and follies.
christian suffering-of-others bears
It is remarkable with what Christian fortitude and resignation we can bear the suffering of other folks.
sitting standing
T is as cheap sitting as standing.
wine judging temptation
Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine and women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age...
hunger clock
My hunger serves me instead of a clock.
passion reason
God hath intended our passions to prevail over reason.
yesterday acknowledge-you world
To acknowledge you were wrong yesterday is simply to let the world know that you are wiser today than you were then.
life-and-death giving physicians
Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death.
heart intelligent should
An intelligent person should put money in the beginning, but not in heart
vision invisible seeing
Vision is seeing the invisible.
ill-will justice office
My Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood; is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.
rain cat tumbling-down
Sweeping from butcher's stalls, dung, guts, and blood, Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud, Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.
rain cat giving
Careful observers may foretell the hour (By sure prognostics) when to dread a show'r. While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.