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
strong pain irritation
Patience alleviates, as impatience augments, pain; thus persons of strong will suffer less than those who give way to irritation.
education noses lifts
Oh how our neighbour lifts his nose, To tell what every schoolboy knows.
kissing two certainty
A chuck under the chin is worth two kisses.
people coward emergencies
Cruel people are ever cowards in emergency.
anarchy firsts steps
Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.
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.