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'T is an old maxim in the schools, That flattery 's the food of fools Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit.
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
Fool
Condescend
Bits
Maxim
Food
Maxims
School
Flattery
Take
Fools
Men
Wit
Schools
Cooking
More quotes by Jonathan Swift
It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. Future ages shall talk of this they shall be famous to all posterity whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.
Jonathan Swift
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
I row after health like a waterman.
Jonathan Swift
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
Praise is the daughter of present power.
Jonathan Swift
Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
Jonathan Swift
Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
Jonathan Swift
I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
Jonathan Swift
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
A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious and low.
Jonathan Swift
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
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Jonathan Swift
Under the rose, since here are none but friends, To own the truth we have some private ends.
Jonathan Swift
No man will take counsel, but every man will take money. Therefore, money is better than counsel.
Jonathan Swift
I cannot but conclude that the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.
Jonathan Swift
Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation td posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.
Jonathan Swift
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
Tis nothing when you are used to it.
Jonathan Swift
Hail fellow, well met.
Jonathan Swift
Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.
Jonathan Swift
