662 Quotes by Jonathan Swift

This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.

Abstracts, abridgments, summaries, etc., have the same use with burning-glasses,--to collect the diffused light rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination.

Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.

Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.

I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.

Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as in books it is generally the worst sort of reading.

Come, agree, the law's costly.

Quotations are best brought in to confirm some opinion controverted.

Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.