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
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.
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.
deeds
You must take the will for the deed.
law eleven possession
Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.
truth devil shame
Tell truth, and shame the devil.
ignorance giving together
It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and malice together, because it gives his answerer double work.
companion pleasant coaches
A pleasant companion is as good as a coach.
revenge men understanding
Neither is it safe to count upon the weakness of any man's understanding, who is thoroughly possessed of the spirit of revenge to sharpen his invention.
college dump cures
A college joke to cure the dumps.