Top 400 Jonathan Swift Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 5 of 9

201. “When I am in danger of bursting, I will go and whisper among the reeds.”

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

203. “The most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.”

— Jonathan Swift

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

— Jonathan Swift

205. “Surely mortal man is a broomstick!”

— Jonathan Swift

206. “I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he shewed as a pattern to encourage purchasers.”

— Jonathan Swift

207. “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.”

— Jonathan Swift

208. “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

209. “What religion is he of? Why, he is an Anythingarian.”

— Jonathan Swift

210. “Tell truth, and shame the devil.”

— Jonathan Swift

211. “I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs. I could only look upwards; the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me; but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky.”

— Jonathan Swift

212. “A prince, the moment he is crown’d, Inherits every virtue sound, As emblems of the sovereign power, Like other baubles in the Tower: Is generous, valiant, just, and wise, And so continues till he dies.”

— Jonathan Swift

213. “As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.”

— Jonathan Swift

214. “The emperor of Lilliput, attended by several of the nobility, comes to see the author in his confinement. The emperor’s person and habit described. Learned men appointed to teach the author their language. He gains favour by his mild disposition. His pockets are searched, and his sword and pistols taken from him.”

— Jonathan Swift

215. “He said, he knew no reason why those who entertain opinions prejudicial to the public should be obliged to change, or should not be obliged to conceal them. And as it was tyranny in any government to require the first, so it was weakness not to enforce the second: for a man may be allowed to keep poisons in his closet, but not to vend them about for cordials.”

— Jonathan Swift

216. “I had been for some hours extremely pressed by the necessities of nature; which was no wonder, it being almost two days since I had last disburdened myself. I was under great difficulties between urgency and shame. The best expedient I could think of, was to creep into my house, which I accordingly did; and shutting the gate after me, I went as far as the length of my chain would suffer, and discharged my body of that uneasy load.”

— Jonathan Swift

217. “Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.”

— Jonathan Swift

218. “The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.”

— Jonathan Swift

219. “So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men that they will grasp at all, and can form no scheme of perfect happiness with less.”

— Jonathan Swift

220. “Liberty of conscience is nowadays only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavoring to propagate that belief as much as they can.”

— Jonathan Swift

221. “Nothing more unqualified the man to act with prudence than a misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt.”

— Jonathan Swift

222. “I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water.”

— Jonathan Swift

223. “Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.”

— Jonathan Swift

224. “A fig for partridges and quails, ye dainties I know nothing of ye; But on the highest mount in Wales Would choose in peace to drink my coffee.”

— Jonathan Swift

225. “The more careless, the more modish.”

— Jonathan Swift

226. “Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine and women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age...”

— Jonathan Swift

227. “Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.”

— Jonathan Swift

228. “Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.”

— Jonathan Swift

229. “Patience alleviates, as impatience augments, pain; thus persons of strong will suffer less than those who give way to irritation.”

— Jonathan Swift

230. “An English tongue, if refined to a certain standard, might perhaps be fixed forever.”

— Jonathan Swift

231. “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.”

— Jonathan Swift

232. “What some people invent the rest enlarge.”

— Jonathan Swift

233. “Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.”

— Jonathan Swift

234. “The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, has of all animals the nimblest tongue.”

— Jonathan Swift

235. “My Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood; is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.”

— Jonathan Swift

236. “Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavor to convict her; Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she’s right; She may then grow wise for spite.”

— Jonathan Swift

237. “The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.”

— Jonathan Swift

238. “It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.”

— Jonathan Swift

239. “The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.”

— Jonathan Swift

240. “If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.”

— Jonathan Swift

241. “It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.”

— Jonathan Swift

242. “When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we be pleased or not.”

— Jonathan Swift

243. “The empress, and young princes of the blood of both sexes, attended by many ladies, sat at some distance in their chairs; but.”

— Jonathan Swift

244. “A fig for your bill of fare; show me your bill of company.”

— Jonathan Swift

245. “T is as cheap sitting as standing.”

— Jonathan Swift

246. “However, in my thoughts I could not sufficiently wonder at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals, who durst venture to mount and walk upon my body, while one of my hands was at liberty, without trembling at the very sight of so prodigious a creature as I must appear to them.”

— Jonathan Swift

247. “Books, like men their authors, have no more than one wayofcoming intothe world, but there areten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.”

— Jonathan Swift

248. “The ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion.”

— Jonathan Swift

249. “This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk.”

— Jonathan Swift

250. “A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?”

— Jonathan Swift