Jonathan Swift

“May you live every day of your life.”
― Jonathan Swift

“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.”
― Jonathan Swift

“When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

[Thoughts on Various Subjects]”
― Jonathan Swift, Abolishing Christianity and Other Essays

“Books, the children of the brain.”
― Jonathan Swift, A Tale Of A Tub And Other Writings

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”
― Jonathan Swift

“Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.”
― Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.”
― Jonathan Swift

“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
― Jonathan Swift

“I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.”
― Jonathan Swift

“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”
― Jonathan Swift

“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.”
― Jonathan Swift

“I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.”
― Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

“Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.”
― Jonathan Swift

“Every dog must have his day.”
― Jonathan Swift

“Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.”
― Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

“Proper words in proper places make the true definition of style.”
― Jonathan Swift

“No wise man ever wished to be younger. ”
― Jonathan Swift

“You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday”

“The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting.”
― Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

“For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.”
― Jonathan Swift

“Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
― Jonathan Swift, The Battle of the Books and Other Short Pieces

“Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived.”
― Jonathan Swift

“There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.”
― Jonathan Swift

“And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
― Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

“That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.”
― Jonathan Swift

“I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals: for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor Such-a-one, and Judge Such-a-one: so with physicians—I will not speak of my own trade—soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. This is the system upon which I have governed myself many years, but do not tell...”
― Jonathan Swift

“We of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking.”
― Jonathan Swift

“If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.”
― Jonathan Swift

“Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.”
― Jonathan Swift

“Ever eating, never cloying,
All-devouring, all-destroying
Never finding full repast,
Till I eat the world at last.”
― Jonathan Swift