Quote

Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.

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
Reason
Pretences
Long
Foretell
Men
Beards
Comets
Pretence
Beard
Events
Age
Reverenced

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.
Jonathan Swift
Image
No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before.
Jonathan Swift
Image
As love without esteem is capricious and volatile esteem without love is languid and cold.
Jonathan Swift
Image
May you live all the days of your life.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Tis nothing when you are used to it.
Jonathan Swift
Image
We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
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
This is every cook's opinion - no savory dish without an onion, but lest your kissing should be spoiled your onions must be fully boiled.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together Let none but Him who rules the thunder Put this man and woman asunder.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Sweeping from butcher's stalls, dung, guts, and blood, Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud, Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own where the law hath not been able to find an expedient.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room.
Jonathan Swift
Image
He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
Jonathan Swift
Image
A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Books, the children of the brain.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Hail fellow, well met.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men in the course of virtue, but seldom or ever reclaims the vicious.
Jonathan Swift