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
belief ifs
If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.
dog book guests
A true critic, in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones.
father book son
My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons.
way flattery worst
Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.
religion
What religion is he of? Why, he is an Anythingarian.
moon world passages
I am convinced that if the virtuosi could once find out a world in the moon, with a passage to it, our women would wear nothing but what directly came from thence.
weed mind fields
It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us; it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.
fate wind should
Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind.
passion men wavering
How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.
wall real reflection
Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.
flower amusement corn
Rhetoric in serious discourses is like the flowers in corn; pleasing to those who come only for amusement, but prejudicial to him who would reap profit from it.
weight reason idle
An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.
funny inspiration being-in-love
I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
drama men play
Men of wit, learning and virtue might strike out every offensive or unbecoming passage from plays.