Jonathan Swift

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion.

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

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

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

Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age…

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.

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

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

Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as 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.

Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly.

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king or a good ministry; for which reason Courts are so overrun with politics.

Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because he that would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a multitude, will convince others the more, as he appears convinced himself.

The latter part of a wise man’s life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

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

What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.

A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.

Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old.

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Men nowadays Worship the Rising Sun, and not the Setting.

There is nothing in this World constant but Inconstancy

ALL Rivers go to the Sea, but none return from it.

Laws are like Cobwebs which may catch small Flies, but let Wasps and Hornets break through. But in Oratory the greatest Art is to hide Art.