Quote

Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.

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
Shook
Easily
Light
Reason
Rider
Riders

More quotes by 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
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
Jonathan Swift
Image
A lie is an excuse guarded
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
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
No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.
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
That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe, how much it altered her person for the worse.
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
A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.
Jonathan Swift
Image
In men desire begets love, and in women love begets desire.
Jonathan Swift
Image
War: that mad game the world so loves to play.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.
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
Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Come, agree, the law's costly.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either.
Jonathan Swift