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 shining company
Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
moon dancing shining
I with borrow'd silver shine, What you see is none of mine. First I show you but a quarter, Like the bow that guards the Tartar: Then the half, and then the whole, Ever dancing round the pole.
men shining half
Nature has left every man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of shining in company; and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified for both who, by a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.
shining fiction poet
Unjustly poets we asperse: Truth shines the brighter clad in verse, And all the fictions they pursue Do but insinuate what is true.
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.