Quote

Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.

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
Men
Sufficient
Block
Ones
Causes
Straw
Small
Stumble
Great
Straws
Way
Uneasy
Make
Trifles

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
For though, in nature, depth and height Are equally held infinite: In poetry, the height we know 'Tis only infinite below.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.
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
For poetry, he's past his prime, He takes an hour to find a rhyme His fire is out, his wit decayed, His fancy sunk, his muse a jade. I'd have him throw away his pen, But there's no talking to some men.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe, how much it altered her person for the worse.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Surely mortal man is a broomstick!
Jonathan Swift
Image
He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.
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
I would rather be a freeman among slaves than a slave among freemen.
Jonathan Swift
Image
No man will take counsel, but every man will take money. Therefore, money is better than counsel.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Men of wit, learning and virtue might strike out every offensive or unbecoming passage from plays.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Words are but wind and learning is nothing but words ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides, While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides.
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
Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.
Jonathan Swift
Image
As love without esteem is capricious and volatile esteem without love is languid and cold.
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
I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.
Jonathan Swift