Quotes by Jonathan Swift
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.
But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.
No wise man ever wished to be younger.
It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.
Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes.
A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than yesterday.
The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.
The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.
There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
I've always believed no matter how many shots I miss, I'm going to make the next one.
A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.
Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.
Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with the public will convince them as he himself appears convinced.
There is nothing in this world constant but inconstancy.
Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same.
Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.
My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.
