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Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
Jonathan Swift
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Jonathan Swift
Age: 77 †
Born: 1667
Born: November 30
Died: 1745
Died: October 19
Essayist
Human Rights Activist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Pamphleteer
Philosopher
Poet
Priest
Prosaist
Public Figure
Dublin city
Isaac Bickerstaff
M. B. Drapier
Lemuel Gulliver
Simon Wagstaff
Desire
Live
Wishes
Every
Cute
Long
Aging
Men
Desires
Youth
Age
Wish
More quotes by Jonathan Swift
I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
Jonathan Swift
For, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition: that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
Jonathan Swift
Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?
Jonathan Swift
Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.
Jonathan Swift
Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
Jonathan Swift
So geographers, in Africa maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er uninhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns
Jonathan Swift
Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex.
Jonathan Swift
Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.
Jonathan Swift
Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.
Jonathan Swift
What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he? But rather than they should excel, He'd wish his rivals all in Hell.
Jonathan Swift
A footman may swear but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?
Jonathan Swift
Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe, how much it altered her person for the worse.
Jonathan Swift
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.
Jonathan Swift
Fond of those hives where folly reigns, And cards and scandal are the chains, Where the pert virgin slights a name, And scorns to redden into shame.
Jonathan Swift
He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
Jonathan Swift
In all I wish, how happy should I be, Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee? So weak thou art that fools thy power despise And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
Jonathan Swift
That incessant envy wherewith the common rate of mankind pursues all superior natures to their own.
Jonathan Swift
It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be: and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.
Jonathan Swift
A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
Jonathan Swift
In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends While Nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us.
Jonathan Swift
