Jonathan Swift quotes

“A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”

— Jonathan Swift

“When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.”

— Jonathan Swift

“May you live all the days of your life.”

— Jonathan Swift

“For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.”

— Jonathan Swift

“A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour.”

— Jonathan Swift

“We have 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.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.”

— Jonathan Swift

“A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than yesterday.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.”

— Jonathan Swift

“One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.”

— Jonathan Swift

“There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.”

— Jonathan Swift

“A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind.”

— Jonathan Swift

“I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Books, the children of the brain.”

— Jonathan Swift

“No wise man ever wished to be younger.”

— Jonathan Swift

“There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.”

— Jonathan Swift

“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Don't set your wit against a child.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.”

— Jonathan Swift

“Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.”

— Jonathan Swift

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