All Jonathan Swift Quotes
- Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble… Block
- I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front… Dial
- Dignity, high station, or great riches, are in some sort necessary to old men, in order to keep the younger at a distance, who are… Age
- 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 Scene
- If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots I would burn my [Gulliver's] Travels. Biographies
- For, what though his Head be empty, provided his Common place-Book be full... Book
- So geographers, in Africa maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er uninhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns Africa
- There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a talking man having nothing to say. Beast
- Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad. Abroad
- In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends; While Nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please… Adversity
- By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty. Age
- The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as is the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at. Been
- There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest. Affect
- Lord, Madame, I have fed like a farmer; I shall grow as fat as a porpoise. Eating
- Bread is the staff of life. Bread
- Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem. Esteem
- A college joke to cure the dumps. College
- Common fluency of speech in many men and most women is owing to a scarcity of matter. Common
- Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense. Fool
- Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law. Eleven