Jonathan Swift
Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist and Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin, 1667-1745
11 quotes.
Quotes by Jonathan Swift
- A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.
- Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as 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.
- An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.
- Censure is a tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
- It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be; and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.
- It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
- No man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one, who mistook them.
- One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.
- Style may be defined, proper words in proper places.
- Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.
- Whoever can make two ears of corn or two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and does more service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.