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Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.
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
Better
Scandal
Look
Reputation
Book
Tongue
Wink
Looks
Trust
Shrug
Alone
Frown
Read
Libel
Language
Convey
Speak
Printed
More quotes by Jonathan Swift
Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.
Jonathan Swift
Everyone desires long life, not one old age.
Jonathan Swift
Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.
Jonathan Swift
Triumphant Tories, and desponding Whigs, Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.
Jonathan Swift
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
Jonathan Swift
Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
Jonathan Swift
Books, like men their authors, have no more than one wayofcoming intothe world, but there areten thousand to go out of it, and return no more.
Jonathan Swift
Just get the right syllable in the proper place.
Jonathan Swift
Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
Jonathan Swift
The more careless, the more modish.
Jonathan Swift
The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age but that of a good one will not reform it.
Jonathan Swift
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
Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?
Jonathan Swift
If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning etc., beginning from his youth, and so go to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last.
Jonathan Swift
Cruel people are ever cowards in emergency.
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
In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends While Nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us.
Jonathan Swift
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
My horses understand me tolerably well I converse with them at least four hours every day. They are strangers to bridle or saddle they live in great amity with me, and friendship of each other.
Jonathan Swift
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