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

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
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
A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.
Jonathan Swift
Image
It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.
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
No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.
Jonathan Swift
Image
There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I cannot imagine why we should be at the expense to furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former have made no sort of provision for ours.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Hereditary right should be kept sacred, not from any inalienable right in a particular family, but to avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of competitors.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Faith, that's as well said as if I had said it myself.
Jonathan Swift
Image
It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age but that of a good one will not reform it.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Liberty of conscience is nowadays only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavoring to propagate that belief as much as they can.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.
Jonathan Swift
Image
It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.
Jonathan Swift
Image
A footman may swear but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?
Jonathan Swift
Image
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
Image
An atheist has got one point beyond the devil.
Jonathan Swift