Quote

This made me reflect, how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.

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
Among
Comparison
Made
Endeavor
Men
Attempt
Equality
Vain
Degree
Degrees
Honor
Reflect

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
Liberty of conscience is nowadays only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavoring to propagate that belief as much as they can.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.
Jonathan Swift
Image
This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavor to convict her Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she's right She may then grow wise for spite.
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
The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Rebukes are easy from our betters, From men of quality and letters But when low dunces will affront, What man alive can stand the brunt?
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
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
Image
Come, agree, the law's costly.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Two women seldom grow intimate but at the expense of a third person.
Jonathan Swift
Image
One principal object of good-breeding is to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men, our superiors, our equals, and those below us.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The more careless, the more modish.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.
Jonathan Swift
Image
A Child will make two Dishes at an Entertainment for Friends and when the Family dines alone, the fore or hind Quarter will makea reasonable Dish and seasoned with a little Pepper or Salt, will be very good Boiled on the fourth Day, especially in Winter.
Jonathan Swift