Jonathan Swift

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

Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?

They say a carpenter's known by his chips.

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.

If it had been a bear it would have bit you.

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

Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company.

Ever eating, never cloying,
All-devouring, all-destroying
Never finding full repast,
Till I eat the world at last.

a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout. I

Hobbes clearly proves that every creature
Lives in a state of war by nature.

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

Ingratitude is amongst them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus; that whoever makes ill-returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of the mankind, from where he has received no obligations and therefore such man is not fit to live.

Hic depositum est Corpus IONATHAN SWIFT S.T.D. Hujus Ecclesiæ Cathedralis Decani, Ubi sæva Indignatio Ulterius Cor lacerare nequit, Abi Viator Et imitare, si poteris, Strenuum pro virili Libertatis Vindicatorem.

I have employed my time, besides ditching, in finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my Travels, in four parts complete, newly augmented, and intended for the press, when the world shall deserve them, or rather when a printer shall be found brave enough to venture his ears. I like the scheme of our meeting after distresses and dispersions; but the chief end I propose to myself in all my labours is to vex the world rather than divert it; and if I could compass that design, without hurting my own person or fortune, I would be the most indefatigable writer you have ever seen, without reading.

Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.