Quotes by Jonathan Swift

The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.

Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.

The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.

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

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.

Most sorts of diversion in men, children, and other animals, are in imitation of fighting.

Two or three hundred people in the world, having the care of education in their hands, and money enough to pay for it, may do all that is necessary.

Books, the children of the brain.

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

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

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

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

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

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.

Human nature is the same in all professions.

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

Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.

There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

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

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

A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone.

May you live all the days of your life.

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

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

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