Quotes
Quotes - Swift
Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
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.
He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.
Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after.
Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em. [Lat., Libertas et natale solum.]
I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.
We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another.
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Convey a libel in a frown. And wink a reputation down!
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.
What some invent the rest enlarge.
The rolling fictions grow in strength and size, Each author adding to the former lies.
It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.
Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as is the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at.
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.
May you live all the days of your life.
The tucked-up sempstress walks hasty strides, While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides.
Vision: the art of seeing things invisible.
The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
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.
