Explore Quotes by Jonathan Swift

The want of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.

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

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.

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

A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.

I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either.

I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals: for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor Such-a-one, and Judge Such-a-one: so with physicians - I will not speak of my own trade - soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. This is the system upon which I have governed myself many years, but do not tell.

Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.

Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.

Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.

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.

Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with the public will convince them as he himself appears convinced.

Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.

Observation is an old man's memory.

There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.

I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.

We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same.

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals, are in imitation of fighting.

No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.

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