Jonathan Swift Quotes

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.

Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.

A lie is an excuse guarded.

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.

I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.

We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.

Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes.

Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind.

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.

When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

Whoever makes two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and does more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.

May you live every day of your life.

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.

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.

As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.

As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.

Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

Books, the children of the brain.