662 Quotes by Jonathan Swift

If a proud man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is that he keeps his at the same time.

Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical.

But gold defiles with frequent touch / There's nothing fouls the hand so much / And scholars give it for the cause / Of British Midas' dirty paws.

Promises and pie crusts are made to be broken.

Midas, we are in story told / Turn'd every thing he touch'd to gold / He chipp'd his bread; the pieces round / Glitter'd like spangles on the ground.

Old hay is equal to old gold / And hence a critic deep maintains / We learn'd to weigh our gold by grains.

Rhetoric in serious discourses is like the flowers in corn; pleasing to those who come only for amusement, but prejudicial to him who would reap profit from it.

And though the villain 'scape a while, he feels. Slow vengeance, like a bloodhound, at his heels.

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