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
bills figs show-me
A fig for your bill of fare; show me your bill of company.
hands done discerning
There seems to be no part of knowledge in fewer hands than that of discerning when to have done.
plato pride tubs
Though Diogenes lived in a tub, there might be, for aught I know, as much pride under his rags, as in the fine-spun garments of the divine Plato.
green trunks intemperance
The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.
defence whole perverseness
Perverseness is your whole defence.
people madness fit
Orators inflame the people, whose anger is really but a short fit of madness.
envy common incessant
That incessant envy wherewith the common rate of mankind pursues all superior natures to their own.
humility pride vanity
Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
literature poison beast
Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.
birthday people soul
Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
mistake coffee voice
It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.
understanding together world
Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.
bewitched last protest sparing took water
Indeed, Madame, your ladyship is very sparing of your tea; I protest the last I took was no more than water bewitched
writing light rising
Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline.