Quote

I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.

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
Religion
Degrees
Read
Christianity
Nothing
Saws
Clergy
Country
Nation
Render
Never
Heard
Persecution
Literature
Beloved
Nations
Popular
Church
Degree

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
Real vision is the ability to see the invisible.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.
Jonathan Swift
Image
By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination.
Jonathan Swift
Image
For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor, and search, and ranging through every corner of nature the difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
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
Image
Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age but that of a good one will not reform it.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Perpetual aiming at wit is a very bad part of conversation. It is done to support a character: it generally fails it is a sort of insult on the company, and a restraint upon the speaker.
Jonathan Swift
Image
For poetry, he's past his prime, He takes an hour to find a rhyme His fire is out, his wit decayed, His fancy sunk, his muse a jade. I'd have him throw away his pen, But there's no talking to some men.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.
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
Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The best Maxim I know in this life is, to drink your Coffee when you can, and when you cannot, to be easy without it. While you continue to be splenetic, count upon it I will always preach. Thus much I sympathize with you that I am not cheerful enough to write, for I believe Coffee once a week is necessary to that.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Simplicity, without which no human performance can arrive at perfection.
Jonathan Swift
Image
We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same.
Jonathan Swift
Image
You cannot reason a person out of something they were not reasoned into.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Hail fellow, well met.
Jonathan Swift