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
justice judging office
Judges... are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing any thing unbecoming their nature in office.
ill-will justice office
My Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood; is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.
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
consult ends private
In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends
abound conceive hard others riches
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches to conceive how others can be in want.
bottle madness places sold
Taverns are places where madness is sold by the bottle
That's as well said as if I had said it myself
expressly heaven ignorant
What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told expressly
art seeing vision
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
child daughter pride war
War is the child of Pride, and Pride the daughter of Riches.
defined proper style words writers-and-writing
Style may defined as the proper words in the proper places.
art fools power thou thy weak
So weak thou art that fools thy power despise; And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
alone less man wise
A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone
bell burden cart hear left rang start thunder
Deaf, giddy, helpless, left alone, To all my friends a burden grown; No more I hear my church's bell Than if it rang out for my knell; At thunder now no more I start Than at the rumbling of a cart