662 Quotes by Jonathan Swift

You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday.

Don’t set your wit against a child.

Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men’s power to be agreeable.

How low an opinion I had of human wisdom and integrity, when I was truly informed of the springs and motives of great enterprises and revolutions in the world, and of the contemptible accidents to which they owed their success.

He had therefore begun to think it not unwise in us to cover our bodies, and by that invention conceal many of our deformities from each other, which would else be hardly supportable.

The latter part of a wise person’s life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.

Let a man be ne’er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.

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

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.