662 Quotes by Jonathan Swift

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king or a good ministry; for which reason Courts are so overrun with politics.

This is every cook’s opinion – no savory dish without an onion, but lest your kissing should be spoiled your onions must be fully boiled.

Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired.

A traveler’s chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad-as well as good example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.

Faith, that’s as well said as if I had said it myself.

With a whirl of thought oppressed I sink from reverie to rest. An horrid vision seized my head, I saw the graves give up their dead.

I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals.

All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain and languor; it’s like spending this year part of next year’s revenue.

The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While streams run down her oil’d umbrella’s sides.