Quote

There's none so blind as they that won't see.

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
Life
Blindness
None
Blind

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he? But rather than they should excel, He'd wish his rivals all in Hell.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Whoe'er excels in what we prize, Appears a hero in our eyes Each girl, when pleased with what is taught, Will have the teacher in her thought. . . . . A blockhead with melodious voice, In boarding-schools may have his choice.
Jonathan Swift
Image
This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Religion supposed Heaven and Hell, the word of God, and sacraments, and twenty other circumstances which, taken seriously, are a wonderful check to wit and humour.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Everyone desires long life, not one old age.
Jonathan Swift
Image
A carpenter is known by his chips.
Jonathan Swift
Image
By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
Jonathan Swift
Image
It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.
Jonathan Swift
Image
He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
Jonathan Swift
Image
For, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition: that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
Jonathan Swift
Image
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
Image
I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
Jonathan Swift
Image
A forward critic often dupes us With sham quotations peri hupsos, And if we have not read Longinus, Will magisterially outshine us. Then, lest with Greek he over-run ye, Procure the book for love or money, Translated from Boileau's translation, And quote quotation on quotation.
Jonathan Swift
Image
All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.
Jonathan Swift
Image
What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.
Jonathan Swift