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
As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Love
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible to others.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: One liners, Vision
Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Friends and Friendship
What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; but what they do not do we are told expressly; they neither marry nor are given in marriage.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Marriage, Heaven
A fig for your bill of fare; show me your bill of company.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Diet
Promises and pie crusts are made to be broken.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Promises
Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.
—Jonathan Swift
Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Power
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
I wont quarrel with my bread and butter.
—Jonathan Swift
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: Talent, Youth, Invention
It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of a spider.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Indecision
I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contribute to our present misery, than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would contribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harvest, although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Food
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
Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as in books it is generally the worst sort of reading.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Arguments, One liners, Argument
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 at a straw.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Trifles
The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Marriage
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
It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be; and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Speaking, Success & Failure
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 out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Scientists, Science
Observation is an old man’s memory.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Memory, Observation
Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manner as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; if you flatter only one or two, you affront the rest.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Manners, Flattery
Money is the life blood of the nation.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Money
One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Enemy, Enemies
Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby that we must take time by the forelock, for when it is once passed there is no recalling it.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Carpe-diem, Time
She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitch folk.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Dress, Fashion
Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects—frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.
—Jonathan Swift
For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Culture, Discovery
This wine should be eaten, for it is much too good to be drunk
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Wine
Some people take more care to hide their wisdom than their folly.
—Jonathan Swift
Topics: Intelligence
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