Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swiftwas an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth30 November 1667
CountryIreland
men speech matter
Common fluency of speech in many men and most women is owing to a scarcity of matter.
self-improvement rats rage
Not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
used
Tis nothing when you are used to it.
children spring play
A jargon form'd from the lost language, wit, Confounded in that Babel of the pit; Form'd by diseased conceptions, weak and wild, Sick lust of souls, and an abortive child; Born between whores and fops, by lewd compacts, Before the play, or else between the acts; Nor wonder, if from such polluted minds Should spring such short and transitory kinds.
freedom slave freeman
I would rather be a freeman among slaves than a slave among freemen.
men talent figures
It is an uncontrolled truth, that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them.
believe lasts saws
Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe, how much it altered her person for the worse.
wall tongue ears
Walls have tongues, and hedges ears.
satire dunces
When dunces are satiric, I take it for a panegyric.
war hobbes states
Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature.
deeds
You must take the will for the deed.
lying bears talent
Brutes find out where their talents lie; a bear will not attempt to fly.
men broomsticks mortals
Surely mortal man is a broomstick!
law eleven possession
Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.