662 Quotes by Jonathan Swift

In all I wish, how happy should I be, Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee? So weak thou art that fools thy power despise; And yet so strong, thou triumph’st o’er the wise.

Observation is an old man’s memory.

It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. “Future ages shall talk of this; they shall be famous to all posterity;” whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.

Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions.

Truth shines the brighter clad in verse.

I’m up and down and round about, Yet all the world can’t find me out; Though hundreds have employed their leisure, They never yet could find my measure.

From not the gravest of Divines, Accept for once some serious Lines.

The reader may remember, that when I signed those articles upon which I recovered my liberty, there were some which I disliked, upon account of their being too servile; neither.

The various opinions of philosophers have scattered through the world as many plagues of the mind as Pandora’s box did those of the body; only with this difference, that they have not left hope at the bottom.