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.


Jonathan Swift

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

Get this (economic plan) passed. Later on, we can all debate it.
, TO NEW HAMPSHIRE LEGISLATORS
I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES
The market is still waiting for HSBC results, which will have a big impact on the direction of the m...
ANDREW TO
Property shares had a technical rebound, but interest rate concerns will still affect properties unt...
ANDREW TO
Bank of China's results were quite good; double-digit growth can be taken as good results for a bank...
ANDREW TO
The index tried to challenge 18,000 but failed, so that triggered profit taking. Tokyo's slide also ...
ANDREW TO
Trading seems to be focusing on selective counters because investors are cautious amid interest rate...
ANDREW TO
We're seeing a minor technical rebound after Wall Street rebounded from two days of losses. The key ...
ANDREW TO
Some investors have returned to pick up the stock at bargain prices.
ANDREW TO
I think the take-up for the placement is not too good and other property developers may be discourag...
ANDREW TO
We are afraid that our freedoms and liberties will be infringed in the future.
ANDREW TO
I think there was some minor selling pressure on telecom stocks as the market continued to see a wea...
ANDREW TO
Use your heart. Understand. Learn to see things
in the now, not as they were or will be, or as ...
E.J. PATTEN
I hate that just because you happen to be good at something,people automatically think that's what m...
AMBER SMITH
Take me to the height where success would seek my help to succeed!
I ARE
The saying sell all your belongings & give to the poor simply means "Redirect your mind to the verit...
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN)
I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahea...
RICHARD YATES
Well, well, well I am trap in well, half way to hell.
DEYTH BANGER
To have the cognitive abilities to do research and development is vital to a forever expanding world...
GARY F EVANS...
They taught me different was wrong.
ANI DIFRANCO
Friendship is a double-edged sword one side it can be great and true but the other side it spells be...
GARY F EVANS...
I'm just so tired of life being something that happens to me. That's not how it's supposed to work. ...
JOSHUA EDWARD SMITH
I have already joined myself in marriage to a husband, namely the kingdom of England.
ELIZABETH I (SPOKEN TO HER PARLAMENT)
The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surpr...
C.S. LEWIS
The love you get, is equal to the love you give.
BEN OAK
I've told you I don't live and die by the polls. Thus, I will refrain from pointing out that we're n...
, IN THE NEW REPUBLIC
Is it not eminently just that I should give myself entirely and without reserve to Him Who drew me o...
FATHER JOHN NICHOLAS GROU, S.J.
I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I beca...
FRANZ KAFKA
All the stories I would like to write persecute me. When I am in my chamber, it seems as if they are...
UMBERTO ECO
I am the planet's most affectionate life-form, something like the cross between a golden retriever a...
ELIZABETH GILBERT
People from my first home say I'm brave. They tell me I'm strong. They pat me on the back and say, '...
KATIE J. DAVIS
Your "Not To Do" list is also important.
MANI S. SIVASUBRAMANIAN
I have kept a diary,
WITHNAIL AND I
But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"
"It is required of every man," ...
CHARLES DICKENS
I am not what you see.
I am what time and effort and interaction slowly unveil.
RICHELLE E. GOODRICH
Lo! my God, without merit on my part, of His pure and free mercy, has given to me (an unworthy, cond...
MARTIN LUTHER
For me my friendship with Omar Rodriguez from Mars Volta that friendship really means a lot to me be...
JOHN FRUSCIANTE
I am down-to-earth and not one of those starry, up-their-own-butt celebrities.
BRUNO TONIOLI
Not in order to justify, but simply in order to explain my lack of consistency, I say: Look at my pr...
LEO TOLSTOY
You are always here with me when I do so, at least in my heart, and it is impossible for me to remem...
NICHOLAS SPARKS
My philosophy has always been that I hope I have a good enough day to give me another one, I hope th...
DAVID NAIL
But now what? Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I ...
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
What would I have wanted to say if I had had the opportunity to see him one more time? I would like ...
LISA J. SHULTZ
The people believe that those who do not think as they do are fools. For that reason, they take me f...
JOSé RIZAL
Jonathan Drazen," I said, squeezing his hand. "You're a manipulative bastard, a brazen liar, and a s...
C.D. REISS
I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.
THEODORE BIKEL
Most powerful of all powers in its holy insinuation is _being_. _To be_ is more powerful than even _...
GEORGE MACDONALD
When your are in the ring, ... it is mental. You may get hit with a good shot or you may hit him wit...
ANDRE WARD
Time determines the occurrence of possibilities and impossibilities, but God determines the time for...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH
Congratulations, to the people which made gotham series, still need some more and extra work!
DEYTH BANGER
The first and foremost human right or fundamental right is the right to exist.
APURVA GAGLANI
If we ever put research into what the subconscious is we could probably come to the conclusion that ...
GARY F EVANS...
i know im not the girl you wanted. not the one you want to hear from. but what you see is what you g...
SIMI GREWAL
The earth is an arena of champions. We are all champions. We all did overcome millions of potential ...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH
Yes! Very funny this terrible thing is. A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls i...
JOSEPH CONRAD
It's a distance you have to keep. People who are in jail continue to go to jail. It's a cycle. They ...
JASON BERRYMAN
I came to love, I came into my own.
THEODORE ROETHKE
You are going to use this courtroom to kill me? I am going to fight for my life one way or another. ...
CHARLES MANSON
I cannot continue to live a life I am not born to live! I cannot continue to exert my full strength ...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH
I have a dream, I have a vision, I have a mission, I have to do something, I will do this at this ti...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH
Give me yourself, O my God, give yourself back to me. Lo, I love you, but if my love is too mean, le...
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
Do not tell me of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell the...
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
I thank God for schools that are serious about the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are vital to perpetu...
JAMES C. DOBSON
Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don't know what you are talking ab...
CHARLOTTE BRONTë
Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I...
C.S. LEWIS
It takes two or three generations to do what I tried to do in one; and my impulses--affections--vice...
THOMAS HARDY
I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because...
JOSé MICARD TEIXEIRA
America has begun a spiritual reawakening. Faith and hope are being restored. Americans are turning ...
, TO THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EVANGELICALS, COLUMBUS, OHIO
Every woman and every man is God the Father's wife when the faithful soul is joined to our Lord Jesu...
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI (LETTER TO THE FAITHFUL I
Every woman and every man is the mother of God when we carry Jesus in our heart and body through a d...
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI (LETTER TO THE FAITHFUL I
I know the truth now. You've figured out I'm falling in love with you and you're trying to make me s...
JULIE GARWOOD
I think that many people will intentionally overlook all of the lifeless facts about their relations...
C. JOYBELL C.
What is consciousness?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he replied, after a little hesitation. “N...
JOHN C. LENNOX
For I wondered that others, subject to death, did live, since
he whom I loved, as if he should...
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
These sanctions seem to me to be very sad, but the judges are those who give the orders and I do not...
MANOLO SAIZ
I told you before, Jem, that you would not leave me. And you are still with me. When I breathe, I wi...
CASSANDRA CLARE
I knock unbidden once at every gate-- If sleeping, wake--if feasting, rise before I turn away-...
JOHN JAMES INGALLS
We all have a duty to define who we are
SOTONYE ANGA
It is not for me to say whether I have done well enough, personally I believe I have not done too ba...
ROBBIE FOWLER
I'm asking God to bless you with something that unsettles you, disturbs you, and upsets you.
CRAIG GROESCHEL
The sad heart needs work to do.
JOAN BAUER
I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss," says Peeta. "Even if my mother isn't a healer."
I'm j...
SUZANNE COLLINS
Those are motivating moments for me. That's the way I can give back to someone who is in the same po...
LANCE ARMSTRONG
Felipe and I, as we discover to our delight, are a perfectly matched, genetically engineered belly-t...
ELIZABETH GILBERT
But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies ha...
C.S. LEWIS
Wake up to a brand new day and realize why you woke up to meet the day! Live to the end of another d...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH
The man at Kodak told me the shots were very good and if I kept it up, they would give me an exhibit...
GORDON PARKS
And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall...
JESUS CHRIST
Dare to seize all the opportunities on your paths.
LAILAH GIFTY AKITA
I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don't know why, some people fill the gaps and others empha...
ANAïS NIN
I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don't know why, some people fill the gaps and others empha...
ANAIS NIN
Because I was dying.
  And Warner could’ve let me die. He was angry and hurt and had ever...
TAHEREH MAFI
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray and gather my thoughts to you, I cannot...
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
February 13, 1936
I ask of people more than they can give me. It is useless to maintain the con...
ALBERT CAMUS
Was he my home, then, my homecoming? You are my homecoming. When I’m with you and we’re well tog...
ANDRé ACIMAN
Come unto me. Come unto me, you say. All right then, dear my Lord. I will try in my own absurd way. ...
FREDERICK BUECHNER
I'm very down-to-earth and accessible, I think.
JULIETTE BINOCHE
How should I know?" said Alice, surprised at her own courage. "It's no business of mine."
The Q...
LEWIS CARROLL
God would not bring you through a Red Sea and turn around and allow you to perish in a fish pond.
JOHNNIE DENT JR.
Clearly, unless the Lord chooses to explain Himself to us, which He does not often do, His motivatio...
JAMES C. DOBSON

More Jonathan Swift

Promises and Pye-Crusts, are made to be broken.
JONATHAN SWIFT
O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast gre...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Style may defined as the proper words in the proper places.
JONATHAN SWIFT
We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another.
JONATHAN SWIFT
There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Vision: the art of seeing things invisible.
JONATHAN SWIFT
We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.
JONATHAN SWIFT
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a sco...
JONATHAN SWIFT
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be pu...
JONATHAN SWIFT
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scou...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Happiness is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
JONATHAN SWIFT
The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false op...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained, the professors appearing, in my ju...
JONATHAN SWIFT
The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance and never to keep his w...
JONATHAN SWIFT
A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy ch...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches to conceive how others can be in want.
JONATHAN SWIFT
The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
JONATHAN SWIFT
The most positive men are the most credulous.
JONATHAN SWIFT
May you live every day of your life.
JONATHAN SWIFT
A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with e...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Don't set your wit against a child.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdo...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
JONATHAN SWIFT
The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet w...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Rebukes are easy from our betters,
From men of quality and letters;
But when low dunces will ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
What some people invent the rest enlarge.
JONATHAN SWIFT
All human race would be wits. And millions miss, for one that hits.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you pleas...
JONATHAN SWIFT
In church your grandsire cut his throat; to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my he...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.
JONATHAN SWIFT
We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as in books it is generally the wor...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical.
JONATHAN SWIFT
One of the very best rules of conversation is to never, say anything which any of the company wish h...
JONATHAN SWIFT
And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same positio...
JONATHAN SWIFT
The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.
JONATHAN SWIFT
For the rest,
Whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through e...
JONATHAN SWIFT
What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
JONATHAN SWIFT
One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
JONATHAN SWIFT
When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men...
JONATHAN SWIFT
She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitch folk.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contrib...
JONATHAN SWIFT
It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: a...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Come, agree, the law's costly.
JONATHAN SWIFT
There's none so blind as they that won't see.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own; wh...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Brutes find out where their talents lie;
A bear will not attempt to fly,
A foundered horse w...
JONATHAN SWIFT
But when a Man
JONATHAN SWIFT
Pretense is the overrating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth,...
JONATHAN SWIFT
I wont quarrel with my bread and butter.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
JONATHAN SWIFT
It was a bold person that first ate an oyster.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Promises and pie crusts are made to be broken.
JONATHAN SWIFT
But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into...
JONATHAN SWIFT
She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on her with a pitchfork.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same positi...
JONATHAN SWIFT
And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
I warrant you lay abed till the cows came home.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own; can read a nod, a shrug, a ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
JONATHAN SWIFT
As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a...
JONATHAN SWIFT
How we apples swim.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnis...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Convey a libel in a frown. And wink a reputation down!
JONATHAN SWIFT
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
JONATHAN SWIFT
The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as is the best fruit which the birds have been...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
JONATHAN SWIFT
They say fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives.
JONATHAN SWIFT
What some invent the rest enlarge.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I heard the little bird say so.
JONATHAN SWIFT
A prince, the moment he is crown'd, Inherits every virtue sound, As emblems of the sovereign p...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.
JONATHAN SWIFT
So, naturalists observe, a flea Has smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller sti...
JONATHAN SWIFT
A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
JONATHAN SWIFT
In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends; While Nature, kindly bent ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
A man suffers death himself as often as he loses those dear to him.
JONATHAN SWIFT
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be p...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts wit...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Necessity is the mother of invention.
JONATHAN SWIFT
It is a maxim, that those to whom everybody allows the second place have an undoubted title to the ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that th...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.
JONATHAN SWIFT
It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguishe...
JONATHAN SWIFT
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Never sleeping, still awake, Pleasing most when most I speak; The delight of old and young, ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Bread is the staff of life.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies but which let wasps and hornets break through.
JONATHAN SWIFT
The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength....
JONATHAN SWIFT
Faith! he must make his stories shorter or change his comrades once a quarter.
JONATHAN SWIFT
When a true genius appears in this world you may know him by the sign that the dunces are all in con...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches to conceive how others can be in want.
JONATHAN SWIFT
When a true genius appears in this world you may know him by this sign, that the dines are all in co...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.
JONATHAN SWIFT
As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.
JONATHAN SWIFT
No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from...
JONATHAN SWIFT
There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Books, the children of the brain.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.
JONATHAN SWIFT
We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their ow...
JONATHAN SWIFT
When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in c...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together; Let none but Him who rules ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by...
JONATHAN SWIFT
The rolling fictions grow in strength and size, Each author adding to the former lies.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.
JONATHAN SWIFT
What some invent, the rest enlarge.
JONATHAN SWIFT
No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder pe...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Whoever makes two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and fals...
JONATHAN SWIFT
The want of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals, are in imitation of fighting.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
No wise man ever wished to be younger.
JONATHAN SWIFT
A college joke to cure the dumps.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us th...
JONATHAN SWIFT
He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.
JONATHAN SWIFT
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in c...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy ch...
JONATHAN SWIFT
When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in co...
JONATHAN SWIFT
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want. -Jonath...
JONATHAN SWIFT
An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that used to steal pieces of money, and hide them in a hole, whic...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Hail, fellow, well met, All dirty and wet: Find out, if you can, Who's master, who's man...
JONATHAN SWIFT
They never would hear, But turn the deaf ear, As a matter they had no concern in.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em. [Lat., Libertas et natale solum.]
JONATHAN SWIFT
Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
JONATHAN SWIFT
'Tis an old maxim in the schools, That flattery's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem
JONATHAN SWIFT
May you live all the days of your life.
JONATHAN SWIFT
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
JONATHAN SWIFT
It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have...
JONATHAN SWIFT
I row after health like a waterman...
JONATHAN SWIFT
He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
JONATHAN SWIFT
A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched ...
JONATHAN SWIFT
One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonab...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Whoever wishes to win in this game must have patience and money, since the values are so little cons...
JONATHAN SWIFT
A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he i...
JONATHAN SWIFT
The tucked-up sempstress walks hasty strides, While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I must complain the cards are ill shuffled till I have a good hand
JONATHAN SWIFT
And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to...
JONATHAN SWIFT
I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth
JONATHAN SWIFT
For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through every...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Every dog must have his day.
JONATHAN SWIFT
One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonab...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretenses to for...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Laws are best explained, interpreted and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perver...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Proper words in proper places make the true definition of style.
JONATHAN SWIFT
A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone
JONATHAN SWIFT
War is the child of Pride, and Pride the daughter of Riches.
JONATHAN SWIFT
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed
JONATHAN SWIFT
Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer an...
JONATHAN SWIFT
The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman
JONATHAN SWIFT
Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruption.
JONATHAN SWIFT
The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as is the best fruit which the birds have been...
JONATHAN SWIFT
A lie is an excuse guarded
JONATHAN SWIFT
Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.
JONATHAN SWIFT
When the belly is full, the bones would be at rest
JONATHAN SWIFT
What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told expressly
JONATHAN SWIFT
Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Argument is the worst sort of conversation.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudices, eradicate virtue, honesty, and religion
JONATHAN SWIFT
Punning is an art of harmonious jingling upon words, which, passing in at the ears, excites a titill...
JONATHAN SWIFT
All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like spending this ye...
JONATHAN SWIFT
In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends
JONATHAN SWIFT
It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.
JONATHAN SWIFT
Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us th...
JONATHAN SWIFT
Gulliver describes a royal personage inspiring awe among the tiny Lilliputians because he was taller...
JONATHAN SWIFT
The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the use of the compass, gunpowde...
JONATHAN SWIFT