| 82 Famous Quotes by Jonathan Swift
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“May you live all the days of your life.”
Toasts Quotes Source: Polite Conversation (dialogue II)
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“She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on her with a
pitchfork.”
Apparel Quotes Source: Polite Conversation (dialogue I)
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“So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.
Thus every poet in his kind
Is bit by him that comes behind.”
Fleas Quotes Source: Poetry--A Rhapsody
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“Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em.
[Lat., Libertas et natale solum.]”
Plagiarism Quotes Source: said about Chief Justice Whitshed's motto for his coach
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“Instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our
hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two
noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.”
Sweetness Quotes Source: Battle of the Books, fable on the merits of the bee (the ancients) and the spider (the moderns)
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“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally
discover everybody's face but their own.”
Satire Quotes Source: The Battle of the Books
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“How we apples swim.”
Apples Quotes Source: Brother Protestants
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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 Source: Cadenus and Vanessa (l. 769)
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“Where Young must torture his invention
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.”
Flattery Quotes Source: Poetry, a Rhapsody (l. 279)
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“A college joke to cure the dumps.”
Jesting Quotes Source: Cassinus and Peter
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“The tucked-up sempstress walks hasty strides,
While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides.”
Umbrellas Quotes Source: Description of a City Shower
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“They never would hear,
But turn the deaf ear,
As a matter they had no concern in.”
Hearing Quotes Source: Dingley and Brent
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“Never sleeping, still awake,
Pleasing most when most I speak;
The delight of old and young,
Though I speak without a tongue.
Nought but one thing can confound me,
Many voices joining round me,
Then I fret, and rave, and gabble,
Like the labourers of Babel.”
Echo Quotes Source: An Echo
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“If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would
not have given them to such a scoundrel.”
Wealth Quotes Source: Letter to Miss Vanhomrigh
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“He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams
out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically
sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.”
Invention Quotes Source: Gulliver's Travels (pt. III, ch. V, Voyage to Laputa)
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“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking
what nobody else has thought.”
Invention Quotes Source: Gulliver's Travels (pt. III, ch. V, Voyage to Laputa)
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“I've often wished that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end,
A terrace walk, and half a rood
Of land, set out to plant a wood.”
Wishes Quotes Source: Imitation of Horace (bk. II, satire 6)
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“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.”
Royalty Quotes Source: On Poetry (l. 191)
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“I warrant you lay abed till the cows came home.”
Cows Quotes Source: Polite Conversation (dialogue II)
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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 Source: Tale of a Tub--Dedication
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“I heard the little bird say so.”
Gossip Quotes Source: Letter to Stella
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“Convey a libel in a frown.
And wink a reputation down!”
Reputation Quotes Source: Journal of a Modern Lady (l. 185)
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“What some invent the rest enlarge.”
Rumor Quotes Source: Journal of a Modern Lady
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“The rolling fictions grow in strength and size,
Each author adding to the former lies.”
Rumor Quotes Source: Tr. of Ovid--Examiner (no. 15)
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“An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that used to steal pieces of
money, and hide them in a hole, which a cat observing, asked,
"Why he would hoard up those round shining things that he could
make no use of?" "Why," said the jackdaw, "my master has a whole
chestfull, and makes no more use of them that I do."”
Jackdaws Quotes Source: Thoughts on Various Subjects
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Jonathan Swift Quotes, Quotations, and Sayings
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