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

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

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

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

He that calls a man ungrateful, sums up all the evil of which one can be guilty.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Ingratitude

As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Love

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

Most actions, good or bad, may be resolved into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and vice.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Self-love

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Government

Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Invention, Youth, Talent

Style may be defined, “proper words in proper places.”
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Style

Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Reason

Everyone desires long life, not one old age.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Aging

Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. If you are civil to the voluble they will abuse your patience; if brusque, your character.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Talking

Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provisions of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Seduction

The example of a vicious prince will corrupt an age, but that of a good one will not reform it.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Kings

Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Complaining, Pessimism, Complaints

Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse; whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Manners

One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Conversation

I wont quarrel with my bread and butter.
—Jonathan Swift

All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; ’tis like spending this year, part of the next year’s revenue.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Pleasure

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

What some people invent the rest enlarge.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Humor

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

This is every cook’s opinion – no savory dish without an onion, but lest your kissing should be spoiled your onions must be fully boiled.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Eating

Whoever wishes to win in this game must have patience and money, since the values are so little constant and the rumors so little founded on truth.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Prophecy, Dreams, Winners, Forethought, Vision, Foresight, Winning

No preacher is listened to but time; which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have tried in vain to put into our heads.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Time

Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Ambition

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Fortune

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Religion

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