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It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.
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
Class
Undoubted
Place
Maxim
Firsts
Maxims
First
Title
Titles
Allows
Second
Everybody
More quotes by Jonathan Swift
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
If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
Jonathan Swift
Ingratitude is amongst them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus that whoever makes ill-returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of the mankind, from where he has received no obligations and therefore such man is not fit to live.
Jonathan Swift
Your onions should be thoroughly boiled.
Jonathan Swift
A fig for your bill of fare show me your bill of company.
Jonathan Swift
Conversation is but carving! Give no more to every guest Than he's able to digest.
Jonathan Swift
Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
Jonathan Swift
An atheist has got one point beyond the devil.
Jonathan Swift
What we call the Irish Brogue is no sooner discovered, than it makes the deliverer, in the last degree, ridiculous and despised and, from such a mouth, an Englishman expects nothing but bulls, blunders, and follies.
Jonathan Swift
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
Hail fellow, well met.
Jonathan Swift
When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.
Jonathan Swift
Though Diogenes lived in a tub, there might be, for aught I know, as much pride under his rags, as in the fine-spun garments of the divine Plato.
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
It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.
Jonathan Swift
Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.
Jonathan Swift
Careful observers may foretell the hour (By sure prognostics) when to dread a show'r. While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
Jonathan Swift
There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a talking man having nothing to say.
Jonathan Swift
Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.
Jonathan Swift
I'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me spade.
Jonathan Swift
