Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

24 quotes

Jonathan Swift is an Anglo-Irish satirist and cleric whose words have traveled far beyond their original audience. Jonathan Swift's observations on Age are as sharp as their thoughts on Religion, revealing genuine breadth of mind. Discover 28 of Jonathan Swift's most memorable quotes, ranging across Age, Religion, Power, Money, and Best. Consider this gem from Jonathan Swift: "No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience."

“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.”

— Jonathan Swift

Death

All Quotes by Jonathan Swift

“May you live all the days of your life.”

— Jonathan Swift

Life

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

— Jonathan Swift

Learning

“The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.”

— Jonathan Swift

Power

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

— Jonathan Swift

Intelligence

“Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.”

— Jonathan Swift

Humor

“Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.”

— Jonathan Swift

Age

“Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.”

— Jonathan Swift

Politics

“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.”

— Jonathan Swift

Death

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

— Jonathan Swift

Best

“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.”

— Jonathan Swift

Food

“No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.”

— Jonathan Swift

Age

“I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.”

— Jonathan Swift

Morning

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

— Jonathan Swift

Nature

“Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.”

— Jonathan Swift

Power

“Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together Let none but Him who rules the thunder Put this man and woman asunder.”

— Jonathan Swift

Anniversary

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

— Jonathan Swift

Money

“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.”

— Jonathan Swift

Religion

“For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.”

— Jonathan Swift

Government

“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.”

— Jonathan Swift

Strength

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

— Jonathan Swift

Religion