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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
Looks
Trust
Shrug
Alone
Frown
Read
Libel
Language
Convey
Speak
Printed
Better
Scandal
Look
Reputation
Book
Tongue
Wink
More quotes by Jonathan Swift
What religion is he of? Why, he is an Anythingarian.
Jonathan Swift
It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and malice together, because it gives his answerer double work.
Jonathan Swift
O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee.
Jonathan Swift
Vision is seeing the invisible.
Jonathan Swift
Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.
Jonathan Swift
There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity nor any which by ill management makes so contemptible a figure.
Jonathan Swift
I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
Jonathan Swift
My Lawyer being practiced almost from his Cradle in defending Falsehood is quite out of his Element when he would be an Advocate for Justice, which as an Office unnatural, he always attempts with great Awkwardness if not with Ill-will.
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
Careful observers may foretell the hour (By sure prognostics) when to dread a show'r. While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
Jonathan Swift
They say fish should swim thrice * * * first it should swim in the sea (do you mind me?) then it should swim in butter, and at last, sirrah, it should swim in good claret.
Jonathan Swift
Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.
Jonathan Swift
Conscience signifies that knowledge which a man hath of his own thoughts and actions and because, if a man judgeth fairly of his actions by comparing them with the law of God, his mind will approve or condemn him this knowledge or conscience may be both an accuser and a judge.
Jonathan Swift
Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
Jonathan Swift
Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.
Jonathan Swift
Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
Jonathan Swift
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
I am convinced that if the virtuosi could once find out a world in the moon, with a passage to it, our women would wear nothing but what directly came from thence.
Jonathan Swift
Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
Jonathan Swift
Such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up.
Jonathan Swift