All Jonathan Swift Quotes
- The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men in the course of virtue, but seldom or ever reclaims the vicious. Course
- War: that mad game the world so loves to play. Game
- I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs. Cat
- She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse. Cat
- That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would… Accidental
- What some people invent the rest enlarge. Enlarge
- A favor is half granted, when graciously refused. Favor
- Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives and the sincerest part of our devotion. Complaint
- A lie is an excuse guarded Excuse
- When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run… Avarice
- When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings. Age
- All Pretences of foretelling by Astrology, are Deceits; for this manifest Reason, because the Wise and Learned, who can only judge whether there be any… Agree
- 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. Backward
- This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was… Air
- Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as in books it is generally the worst sort of reading. Argument
- 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… Air
- Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him ! Admit
- The greatest Inventions were produced in Times of Ignorance; as the Use of the Compass, Gunpowder, and Printing; and by the dullest Nation, as the… Compass
- I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the… According
- Polite Conversation 'Tis happy for him, that his father was before him. Conversation