Jonathan Swift Quotes

The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting.

There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof, I hope, there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am not understood, it shall be concluded, that something very useful and profound is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentence is printed in a different character, shall be judged to contain something extraordinary either of wit or sublime.

She has more goodness in her little finger, than he has in his whole body.

That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.

Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.

Añadí que la vida que había llevado desde entonces era lo bastante trabajosa para matar a un ser diez veces más fuerte que yo; que mi salud se había quebrantado mucho con aquella continua y miserable faena de divertir a la gentuza a todas las horas del día,

They say a carpenter's known by his chips.

She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse.

Seamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship.

The emperor, and all his court, came out to meet us; but his great officers would by no means suffer his majesty to endanger his person by mounting on my body.

He likewise directed, “that every senator in the great council of a nation, after he had delivered his opinion, and argued in the defence of it, should be obliged to give his vote directly contrary; because if that were done, the result would infallibly terminate in the good of the public.

The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.

the caprices of womankind are not limited by any climate or nation, and that they are much more uniform, than can be easily imagined.

Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.

I know nothing of music; I would not give a farthing for all the music in the universe.