[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$fjUGeIqi1r7DQAbunJmRvvuDag-oJpAFEhTneh16BHbA":3,"$feRtaB5hi5NdTRQTUaRQ4s75R2WbiUDJ_seJFs1m4mzo":100},{"author":4,"tags":51},{"author_id":5,"author_name":6,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"bio":9,"short_bio":10,"bio_jsonld":11,"slug":49,"image_url":50},987,"Jonathan Swift","J",662,"The early eighteenth century in Britain and Ireland was a period of intense political turbulence, religious controversy, and rapid expansion of print culture, conditions that made satire one of the most potent literary weapons available to a writer. Jonathan Swift, born in Dublin on 30 November 1667, worked at the intersection of all these forces, exercising his pen as a writer, essayist, satirist, poet, pamphleteer, and Anglican priest throughout a long and productive life that ended in the city of his birth on 19 October 1745.\n\nSwift was educated at Kilkenny College, Trinity College Dublin, and Hertford College, a formation that equipped him for careers in both the church and letters. As a citizen of the Kingdom of Ireland, he wrote in English across an unusually wide range of forms — from prose fiction and children's writing to opinion journalism — and rose within the Anglican establishment to become Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. That ecclesiastical position gave him a platform that reinforced rather than constrained his literary activity.\n\nHis notable works span the full breadth of his satirical ambitions. A Tale of a Tub, a prose satire on religious excess and literary pretension, appeared early in his career. A Modest Proposal, a pamphlet in which he adopted the voice of a coldly rational economist to address poverty in Ireland, demonstrated the capacity of irony to carry moral argument. Gulliver's Travels, his work of prose fiction, follows a ship's surgeon through a series of imaginary societies and stands as a sustained examination of human nature and political institutions.\n\nCritical recognition of Swift's range was established in his own lifetime and codified in subsequent bibliographic tradition. The Library of Congress Name Authority File records him under the authorized heading \"Swift, Jonathan, 1667–1745,\" a designation that anchors his identity to the Dublin-born, Dublin-buried writer whose output crossed nearly every prose and verse form available to him.","The early eighteenth century in Britain and Ireland was a period of intense political turbulence, religious controversy, and rapid expansion of print culture, conditions that made satire one of the most potent literary weapons available to a writer. Jonathan Swift, born in Dublin on 30 November 1667, worked at the intersection of all these forces, exercising his pen as a writer, essayist, satirist, poet, pamphleteer, and Anglican priest throughout a long and productive life that ended in the…",{"@graph":12,"@context":48},[13,25],{"@id":14,"name":6,"@type":15,"sameAs":16,"birthDate":22,"deathDate":23,"description":24},"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q41166","Person",[14,17,18,19,20,21],"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift","https://viaf.org/viaf/14777110/","https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n78096912","https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL24522A","https://d-nb.info/gnd/118620193","1667-11-30","1745-10-19","Anglo-Irish satirist and essayist (1667–1745)",{"@type":26,"author":27,"headline":30,"isBasedOn":31,"mainEntity":32,"reviewedBy":33,"articleBody":9,"dateCreated":34,"dateModified":35,"additionalProperty":36,"creativeWorkStatus":47},"Article",{"name":28,"@type":29},"Editorial Team","Organization","Jonathan Swift — biography",[14,17,19,20],{"@id":14},{"name":28,"@type":29},"2026-05-24T17:40:58.927836+00:00","2026-05-24T17:59:59.784027+00:00",[37,41,44],{"@type":38,"value":39,"propertyID":40},"PropertyValue","Q41166","wikidata",{"@type":38,"value":42,"propertyID":43},"0.960","factscore",{"@type":38,"value":45,"propertyID":46},"claude-sonnet-4-6","draftModel","AI-drafted, auto-published","https://schema.org","jonathan-swift",null,[52,56,60,64,68,71,74,78,81,85,88,91,94,97],{"tag_id":53,"tag_name":54,"tag_count":55},326,"men",48,{"tag_id":57,"tag_name":58,"tag_count":59},355,"lying",9,{"tag_id":61,"tag_name":62,"tag_count":63},222,"inspirational",8,{"tag_id":65,"tag_name":66,"tag_count":67},3,"humor",7,{"tag_id":69,"tag_name":70,"tag_count":67},422,"food",{"tag_id":72,"tag_name":73,"tag_count":67},692,"running",{"tag_id":75,"tag_name":76,"tag_count":77},24,"life",6,{"tag_id":79,"tag_name":80,"tag_count":77},3785,"giving",{"tag_id":82,"tag_name":83,"tag_count":84},18,"happiness",5,{"tag_id":86,"tag_name":87,"tag_count":84},60,"writing",{"tag_id":89,"tag_name":90,"tag_count":84},63,"funny",{"tag_id":92,"tag_name":93,"tag_count":84},1341,"law",{"tag_id":95,"tag_name":96,"tag_count":84},1400,"satire",{"tag_id":98,"tag_name":99,"tag_count":84},1841,"literature",{"quotes":101,"pagination":164},[102,109,115,122,128,134,140,146,152,158],{"id":103,"quote_text":104,"author_id":5,"source_id":63,"has_image":105,"author":106,"source":107,"quote_tag":108,"commentary":50},4022085,"Style may be defined, 'proper words in proper places.'",false,{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":49,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":50},{},[],{"id":110,"quote_text":111,"author_id":5,"source_id":63,"has_image":105,"author":112,"source":113,"quote_tag":114,"commentary":50},4022081,"Mere rhetoric in serious discourses, is like flowers in corn, pleasing to those who look only for amusement, but prejudicial to him who would reap profit from it.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":49,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":50},{},[],{"id":116,"quote_text":117,"author_id":5,"source_id":63,"has_image":105,"author":118,"source":119,"quote_tag":120,"commentary":121},4022079,"Our passion are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":49,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":50},{},[],"**The Backstory**\nThis quote is likely from Jonathan Swift's essay \"A Letter to a Young Poet\" (1738), where he reflects on the fleeting nature of passion and creativity. Swift, a satirist and poet, was known for his wit and insight into the human condition. At this time in his life, Swift was grappling with the decline of his own creative output and the disillusionment of his contemporaries with the literary world.\n\n**The Hidden Insight**\nThe quote reveals a counter-intuitive truth about passion and creativity: while they can provide a temporary surge of energy and motivation, they can also leave us depleted and vulnerable in the long run. Swift suggests that our passions, though they may bring us temporary strength, ultimately undermine our resilience and make us weaker in the aftermath.\n\n**How to Use This**\nTo apply this mindset today, recognize that your most intense creative periods may be followed by a period of exhaustion and recovery. Instead of pushing yourself to maintain an unsustainable pace, adopt a more balanced approach by pacing your work, allowing time for rest and reflection to recharge your creative energies.",{"id":123,"quote_text":124,"author_id":5,"source_id":63,"has_image":105,"author":125,"source":126,"quote_tag":127,"commentary":50},4022075,"Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":49,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":50},{},[],{"id":129,"quote_text":130,"author_id":5,"source_id":63,"has_image":105,"author":131,"source":132,"quote_tag":133,"commentary":50},4022074,"Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":49,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":50},{},[],{"id":135,"quote_text":136,"author_id":5,"source_id":63,"has_image":105,"author":137,"source":138,"quote_tag":139,"commentary":50},4022069,"All's well, what's a rainy day? / Never mind that cloud, behind that cloud you'll find a golden ray.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":49,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":50},{},[],{"id":141,"quote_text":142,"author_id":5,"source_id":63,"has_image":105,"author":143,"source":144,"quote_tag":145,"commentary":50},4022067,"No length of time can make you quit, / Honour and virtue, sense and wit, / Thus you may still be young to me, / While I can better hear than see; / Oh, ne'er may fortune show her spite, / To make me deaf, and mend my sight.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":49,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":50},{},[],{"id":147,"quote_text":148,"author_id":5,"source_id":63,"has_image":105,"author":149,"source":150,"quote_tag":151,"commentary":50},4022062,"No length of time can make you quit / Honour and virtue, sense and wit, / Thus you may still be young to me, / While I can better hear than see; / Oh, ne'er may fortune show her spite, / To make me deaf, and mend my sight.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":49,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":50},{},[],{"id":153,"quote_text":154,"author_id":5,"source_id":63,"has_image":105,"author":155,"source":156,"quote_tag":157,"commentary":50},4022057,"One of the best rules of conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":49,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":50},{},[],{"id":159,"quote_text":160,"author_id":5,"source_id":63,"has_image":105,"author":161,"source":162,"quote_tag":163,"commentary":50},4022051,"I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he showed as a pattern to encourage purchasers.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":49,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":50},{},[],{"currentPage":165,"totalPages":166,"totalItems":8,"itemsPerPage":167},1,67,10]