Quote

'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

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
School
Flattery
Take
Fools
Men
Wit
Schools
Cooking
Fool
Condescend
Bits
Maxim
Food
Maxims

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Unjustly poets we asperse: Truth shines the brighter clad in verse, And all the fictions they pursue Do but insinuate what is true.
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
Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
Jonathan Swift
Image
But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
Jonathan Swift
Image
This wine should be eaten, it is too good to be drunk.
Jonathan Swift
Image
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
Image
Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !
Jonathan Swift
Image
Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.
Jonathan Swift
Image
That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.
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
Philosophy! the lumber of the schools.
Jonathan Swift
Image
There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age but that of a good one will not reform it.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
Jonathan Swift