Quote

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.

Jonathan Swift

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Example
Company
Flatter
Two
Offend
Nothing
Flattery
Great
Manners
None
Please
Rest

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
Pride, ill nature, and want of sense are the three great sources of ill manners without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind.
Jonathan Swift
Image
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
Jonathan Swift
Image
May you live all the days of your life.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Tis nothing when you are used to it.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Coffee makes us severe, and grave and philosophical.
Jonathan Swift
Image
In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man uncapable of holding any public station for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Desponding Phyllis was endu'd With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, She trembled when a Man drew near Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: If o'er against her you were plac'd She durst not look above your Waist
Jonathan Swift
Image
They say fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Surely mortal man is a broomstick!
Jonathan Swift
Image
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
Jonathan Swift
Image
It is likewise to be observed that this society hath a peculiar chant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Sweeping from butcher's stalls, dung, guts, and blood, Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud, Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !
Jonathan Swift
Image
Whence proceeds this weight we lay On what detracting people say? Their utmost malice cannot make Your head, or tooth, or finger ache Nor spoil your shapes, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place.
Jonathan Swift
Image
No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.
Jonathan Swift
Image
She 's no chicken she 's on the wrong side of thirty, if she be a day.
Jonathan Swift
Image
One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.
Jonathan Swift