662 Quotes by Jonathan Swift

Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.

When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.

The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.

A forward critic often dupes us With sham quotations peri hupsos, And if we have not read Longinus, Will magisterially outshine us. Then, lest with Greek he over-run ye, Procure the book for love or money, Translated from Boileau's translation, And quote quotation on quotation.

No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before.

Love of flattery, in most men, proceeds from the mean opinion they have of themselves; in women, from the contrary.

It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.

Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Aeneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.

Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.