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Satire14 quotes
Men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent as when they are at stool. — Jonathan Swift · 1726Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. — Jonathan Swift · 1745He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. — Jonathan Swift · 1726I said there was a society of men among us bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose that white is black and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves. — Jonathan Swift · 1726There’s none so blind as they that won’t see. — Jonathan Swift · 1738Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old. — Jonathan Swift · 1727All 14 quotes →Travel writing6 quotes
Men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent as when they are at stool. — Jonathan Swift · 1726He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. — Jonathan Swift · 1726I said there was a society of men among us bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose that white is black and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves. — Jonathan Swift · 1726They will never allow that a child is under any obligation to his father for begetting him, or his mother for bringing him into the world - which, considering the miseries of human life, was neither a benefit in itself nor intended so by his parents, whose thoughts in their love encounters were otherwise employed. — Jonathan Swift · 1726Whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together. — Jonathan Swift · 1726I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth. — Jonathan Swift · 1726Philosophical literature2 quotes
There is nothing in this World constant, but Inconstancy. — Jonathan Swift · 1711Laws are like Cobwebs, which may catch small Flies, but let Wasps and Hornets break through. — Jonathan Swift · 1711