82 Famous Quotes by Jonathan Swift
11/30/1667 - 10/19/1745
Also Known As:
Dean Swift
M.B. Drapier
Lemuel Gulliver
Professions:
Information:
About Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
He is remembered for works such as Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, Drapier's Letters, The Battle of the Books, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and A Tale of a Tub. Swift is probably the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonyms – such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, MB Drapier – or anonymously. He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire: the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.
The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as is the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at.
Slander
Quotes, by Jonathan Swift
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The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
Want
Quotes, by Jonathan Swift
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And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears
of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground
where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and
do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of
politicians put together."
Agriculture
Quotes, by Jonathan Swift , Source: Gulliver's Travels--Voyage to Brobdingnag (pt. II, ch. CII)
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It is a maxim, that those to whom everybody allows the second
place have an undoubted title to the first.
Worth
Quotes, by Jonathan Swift , Source: Tale of a Tub--Dedication
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'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
Flattery
Quotes, by Jonathan Swift , Source: Cadenus and Vanessa (l. 769)
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Whoever makes two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and does more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together
Politicians
Quotes, by Jonathan Swift
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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
Universe
Quotes, by Jonathan Swift
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A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
Chastity
Quotes, by Jonathan Swift , Source: Introductions to History of the Reformation (preface), by Bishop Burnet
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She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on her with a
pitchfork.
Apparel
Quotes, by Jonathan Swift , Source: Polite Conversation (dialogue I)
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