Jonathan Swift quotes - page 10

Judges... are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing any thing unbecoming their nature in office. (Jonathan Swift)
Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as in books it is generally the worst sort of reading. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Brutes find out where their talents lie A bear will not attempt to fly, A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five barred gate. A dog by instinct turns aside Who sees the ditch too deep and wide, But man we find the only creature Who, led by folly, combats nature Who, when she loudly cries Forbear With obstinacy fixes there And where the genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs. View quote
Jonathan Swift
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. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Bachelor's fare Bread and cheese, and kisses. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Pride, ill nature, and want of sense are the three great sources of ill manners without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world. View quote
Jonathan Swift
When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings. View quote
Jonathan Swift
No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Come, agree, the law's costly. View quote
Jonathan Swift
It is likewise to be observed that this society hath a peculiar chant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Ingratitude is amongst them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus; that whoever makes ill-returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of the mankind, from where he has received no obligations and therefore such man is not fit to live. (Jonathan Swift)
O Grub Street how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Whoever wishes to win in this game must have patience and money, since the values are so little constant and the rumors so little founded on truth Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Laws are best explained, interpreted and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding and eluding them. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her person for the worse. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down. View quote
Jonathan Swift
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. View quote
Jonathan Swift
All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenues. View quote
Jonathan Swift
When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. View quote
Jonathan Swift
What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736. View quote
Jonathan Swift
A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone. (Jonathan Swift)
I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contribute to our present misery, than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would contribute to his death and that the present plentiful harvest, although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. View quote
Jonathan Swift
If they would, for Example, praise the Beauty of a Woman, or any other Animal, they describe it by Rhombs, Circles, Parallelograms, Ellipses, and other geometrical terms ... View quote
Jonathan Swift
In church your grandsire cut his throat to do the job too long he tarried he should have had my hearty vote to cut his throat before he married. View quote
Jonathan Swift