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
genius prodigies last-words
Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !
summer air august
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.
sarcasm men vices
It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.
nice men ideas
A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
delicacy may judgment
A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?
friendship two feelings
Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
greed vices humankind
There is no vice which humankind carries to such wild extremes as that of avarice.
science feet oxen
The sciences are found, like Hercules's oxen, by tracing them backward; and old sciences are unravelled like old stockings, by beginning at the foot.
strong believe army
It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.
science dozen biographies
If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots I would burn my [Gulliver's] Travels.
friends believe men
Your notions of friendship are new to me; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well know to whom I would give the first place in my friendship, but they are not in the way, I am condemned to another scene, and therefore I distribute it in pennyworths to those about me, and who displease me least, and should do the same to my fellow prisoners if I were condemned to a jail.
secret safe breasts
A secret is seldom safe in more than one breast.
bread quarrels bread-and-butter
I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.
poppies praise infusion
All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.