Jonathan Swift Quotes

As learned commentators view
In Homer more than Homer knew.

So, naturalists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bit 'em;
And so proceed ad infinitum.
Thus every poet, in his kind,
Is bit by him that comes behind.

Añadió que nuestra institución de gobierno y de ley obedecía, sencillamente, a los grandes defectos de nuestra razón y, por consiguiente, de nuestra virtud, ya que la razón por sí sola es suficiente para dirigir un ser racional.

I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.

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

They say a carpenter's known by his chips.

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 reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water.

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet, when we want shoes.

Let that be as it will, thus much is certain, that, however spiritual intrigues begin, they generally conclude like all others; they may branch upward toward heaven, but the root is in the earth.

Books, the children of the brain.

...I hid myself between two leaves of sorrel, and there discharged the necessities of nature.

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.