Jonathan Swift Quotes

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.

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

Instead of dirt and poison we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax; thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.

There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake, though all the World sees them to be in downright nonsense.

And surely 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…

'Tis very warm weather when one's in bed.

Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.

We are so fond of one another, because our ailments are the same.

I love good creditable acquaintance; I love to be the worst of the company.