662 Quotes by Jonathan Swift

My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.

Love why do we one passion call, When 'tis a compound of them all? Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet, In all their equipages meet; Where pleasures mix'd with pains appear, Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.

For poetry, he's past his prime, He takes an hour to find a rhyme; His fire is out, his wit decayed, His fancy sunk, his muse a jade. I'd have him throw away his pen, But there's no talking to some men.

Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.

Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.

There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.

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

Party is the madness of many for the gain of a few.

It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.