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
language corruption introducing
The affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.
air age peculiar
In all assemblies, though you wedge them ever so close, we may observe this peculiar property, that over their heads there is room enough; but how to reach it is the difficult point. To this end the philosopher's way in all ages has been by erecting certain edifices in the air.
revenge men practice
There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of the world,--to despise it, to return the like, or to endeavor to live so as to avoid it; the first of these is usually pretended, the last is almost impossible, the universal practice is for the second.
shining fiction poet
Unjustly poets we asperse: Truth shines the brighter clad in verse, And all the fictions they pursue Do but insinuate what is true.
men speech matter
Common fluency of speech in many men and most women is owing to a scarcity of matter.
self-improvement rats rage
Not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
used
Tis nothing when you are used to it.
children spring play
A jargon form'd from the lost language, wit, Confounded in that Babel of the pit; Form'd by diseased conceptions, weak and wild, Sick lust of souls, and an abortive child; Born between whores and fops, by lewd compacts, Before the play, or else between the acts; Nor wonder, if from such polluted minds Should spring such short and transitory kinds.
freedom slave freeman
I would rather be a freeman among slaves than a slave among freemen.
wall tongue ears
Walls have tongues, and hedges ears.
satire dunces
When dunces are satiric, I take it for a panegyric.
war hobbes states
Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature.
deeds
You must take the will for the deed.
law eleven possession
Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.