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
consult ends private
In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends
bewitched last protest sparing took water
Indeed, Madame, your ladyship is very sparing of your tea; I protest the last I took was no more than water bewitched
happiness perpetual possession
Happiness is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
advice expect mankind possible
How is it possible to expect mankind to take advice when they will not so much as take warning?
bottle madness places sold
Taverns are places where madness is sold by the bottle
abound conceive hard others riches
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches to conceive how others can be in want.
That's as well said as if I had said it myself
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
greatest ignorance inventions printing produced
The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing
hail mets wells
Hail fellow, well met.
men shining half
Nature has left every man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of shining in company; and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified for both who, by a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.
glasses light imagination
Abstracts, abridgments, summaries, etc., have the same use with burning-glasses,--to collect the diffused light rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination.
names giving spades
I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.
opinion quotations
Quotations are best brought in to confirm some opinion controverted.