Jonathan Swift

How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.

What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.

This is every cook's opinion - _x000D_ no savory dish without an onion, _x000D_ but lest your kissing should be spoiled _x000D_ your onions must be fully boiled.

The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.

This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.

I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.

When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.

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.

The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.

It is likewise to be observed that this society hath a peculiar chant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply.

hoever 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 Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

For, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition: that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.

It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.

That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.

Seamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship.

Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.

It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.

For in that universal call,_x000D_ _x000D_ Few bankers will to heaven be mounters;_x000D_ _x000D_ They'll cry, "Ye shops, upon us fall!_x000D_ _x000D_ Conceal and cover us, ye counters!_x000D_ _x000D_ When other hands the scales shall hold,_x000D_ _x000D_ And they, in men's and angels' sight_x000D_ _x000D_ Produced with all their bills and gold,_x000D_ _x000D_ 'Weigh'd in the balance and found light!'

Those dreams that on the silent night intrude, and with false flitting shapes our minds delude ... are mere productions of the brain. And fools consult interpreters in vain.

Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.