Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Jonathan Swift (Irish Satirist)

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745,) known as “Dean Swift,” was an Irish satirist, poet, and Anglican cleric. His work has not only been continuously in print but also influenced writers as diverse as William Makepeace Thackeray and George Orwell.

Born in Dublin of English parents, Swift was educated at Kilkenny School and Trinity College, Dublin. He became secretary to the English statesman and essayist William Temple and took holy orders in 1695. Swift’s initial works include The Battle of the Books (1704) and the witty and notorious A Tale of a Tub (1704,) which established Swift’s reputation.

Ordained an Anglican priest in 1694, Swift became Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, in 1713. There he wrote his best-known work, Gulliver’s Travels (1726,) a satire on human follies and social institutions in the form of a fantastic tale of travels in imaginary lands.

Swift also wrote many works condemning England’s treatment of Ireland, including A Modest Proposal (1729.) His notable poems include Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift (1739,) in which he evaluates his life and his work with sarcastic detachment and the satirical On Poetry, a Rhapsody (1733.)

Swift is buried in Dublin’s St Patrick’s Cathedral; his famous epitaph reads “ubi saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit” (“where fierce indignation cannot further tear apart the heart.”)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Jonathan Swift

Come, agree, the law’s costly.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Justice

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.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Ancestry, Ancestors

Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together; Let none but Him who rules the thunder Put this man and woman asunder.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Weather

Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Vanity

A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Money

The strongest passions allow us some rest, but vanity keeps us perpetually in motion. What a dust do I raise! says the fly upon a coach-wheel. And at what a rate do I drivel says the fly upon the horse’s back.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Vanity

Don’t set your wit against a child.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Wit, One liners, Parents, Parenting

She looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Insults

Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals are an imitation of fighting.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Sports

When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we be pleased or not.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Friendship

I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Kissing, Kisses

As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Shame

One principal point of good-breeding is to suit our behavior to the three several degrees of men—our superiors, our equals, and those below us.
Jonathan Swift

Mere rhetoric, in serious discourses, is like flowers in corn, pleasing to those who look only for amusement, but prejudicial to him who would reap profit from it.
Jonathan Swift

But when a Man
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Propaganda

As universal a practice as lying is, and as easy a one as it seems, I do not remember to have heard three good lies in all my conversation.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Lying

A fig for your bill of fare; show me your bill of company.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Diet

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

An excuse is a lie guarded.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Courage

Though Diogenes lived in a tub, there might have been, for aught I know, as much pride under his rags, as in the fine-spun garments of the divine Plato.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Pride

It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Death, Dying

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Children

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.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Business

In oratory, the greatest art is to conceal art.
Jonathan Swift

The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Belief

In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained, the professors appearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their senses; which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favorites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services, of instructing princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employment persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive; and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Politics, Politicians

Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Power

War! that mad game the world so loves to play.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: War

The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, (such) as the use of the compass, gunpowder and printing.
Jonathan Swift

Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
Jonathan Swift
Topics: Men

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