Language Quotes by Jonathan Swift

13 Language quotes by Jonathan Swift

All Language quotes Jonathan Swift’s page

Jonathan Swift wields language like a scalpel—precise, cutting, and often laced with biting humor. This concise collection of thirteen quotes captures his satirical brilliance and his knack for exposing society’s follies through clever phrasing.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Argument is the worst sort of conversation.

Jonathan Swift

Image

Big-endians and small-endians.

Jonathan Swift

Image

“Words are the clothing of our thoughts.”

Jonathan Swift

Image

Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.

Jonathan Swift

Image

Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind.

Jonathan Swift

Image

Proper words in proper places make the true definiton of style.

Jonathan Swift

Image

Silks, velvets, calicoes, and the whole lexicon of female fopperies.

Jonathan Swift

Image

An English tongue, if refined to a certain standard, might perhaps be fixed forever.

Jonathan Swift

Image

Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own; can read a nod, a shrug, a look,…

Jonathan Swift

Image

The affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.

Jonathan Swift

Image

Pride, ill nature, and want of sense are the three great sources of ill manners; without some one of these defects, no…

Jonathan Swift

Image

A jargon form'd from the lost language, wit, Confounded in that Babel of the pit; Form'd by diseased conceptions, weak and wild,…

Jonathan Swift

Image

The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a scarcity of…

Jonathan Swift

Image

Other authors on Language

More by Jonathan Swift

Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby that we must take time by the forelock; for, when it is…

Jonathan Swift

Image

“He said, he knew no reason why those who entertain opinions prejudicial to the public should be obliged to change, or should not be…

Jonathan Swift

Image

I with borrow'd silver shine, What you see is none of mine. First I show you but a quarter, Like the bow that guards…

Jonathan Swift

Image

A favor is half granted, when graciously refused.

Jonathan Swift

Image

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

Jonathan Swift

Image

The best Maxim I know in this life is, to drink your Coffee when you can, and when you cannot, to be easy without…

Jonathan Swift

Image

A lie is an excuse guarded

Jonathan Swift

Image

A forward critic often dupes us With sham quotations peri hupsos, And if we have not read Longinus, Will magisterially outshine us. Then, lest…

Jonathan Swift

Image

May you live every day of your life.

Jonathan Swift

Image

Ale is meat, drink and cloth; it will make a cat speak and a wise man dumb.

Jonathan Swift

Image

All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like spending this year part of the next…

Jonathan Swift

Image

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…

Jonathan Swift

Image

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

Jonathan Swift

Image

I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals: for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers,…

Jonathan Swift

Image

So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men that they will grasp at all, and can form no scheme of perfect happiness with…

Jonathan Swift

Image