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
weed mind fields
It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us; it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.
men mind example
A traveler's chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad-as well as good example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.
differences mind world
The various opinions of philosophers have scattered through the world as many plagues of the mind as Pandora's box did those of the body; only with this difference, that they have not left hope at the bottom.
men house mind
I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he shewed as a pattern to encourage purchasers.
nails mindfulness scratches
Blot out, correct, insert, refine, enlarge, diminish, interline. Be mindful, when invention fails. To scratch your head and bite your nails.
running greed mind
When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.
mind virtue mankind
And, is not Virtue in Mankind The Nutriment that feeds the Mind?
leave passions stronger though weaker
Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after
applied best interest laws whose
Laws are best explained, interpreted and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding and eluding them
blades country deserves ears essential grass grew grow race service together whoever
Whoever makes two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and does more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together
belly bones rest
When the belly is full, the bones would be at rest
afterwards begun continues less treatment
When the world has once begun to use us ill, it afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony, as men do to a whore
coffee philosophical espresso
Coffee makes us severe, and grave and philosophical.
block men want
Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.