Quote

Blot out, correct, insert, refine, enlarge, diminish, interline. Be mindful, when invention fails. To scratch your head and bite your nails.

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
Fails
Refine
Mindfulness
Enlarge
Nails
Insert
Bites
Mindful
Correct
Scratch
Invention
Scratches
Failing
Bite
Head
Diminish
Blot

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.
Jonathan Swift
Image
He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Whence proceeds this weight we lay On what detracting people say? Their utmost malice cannot make Your head, or tooth, or finger ache Nor spoil your shapes, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place.
Jonathan Swift
Image
A college joke to cure the dumps.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Pray steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's, Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I'm up and down and round about, Yet all the world can't find me out Though hundreds have employed their leisure, They never yet could find my measure.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
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
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
Image
Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
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
A wise man will find us to be rogues by our faces.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.
Jonathan Swift
Image
A lie is an excuse guarded
Jonathan Swift
Image
It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.
Jonathan Swift
Image
By the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Words are but wind and learning is nothing but words ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
Jonathan Swift
Image
This Day, whate'er the Fates decree Shall still be kept with Joy by me: This Day then, let us not be told, That you are sick, and I grown old
Jonathan Swift