Quote

Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.

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
Eleven
Points
Possession
Law

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
Had Windham possessed discretion in debate, or Sheridan in conduct, they might have ruled their age.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
Jonathan Swift
Image
There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of the world,--to despise it, to return the like, or to endeavor to live so as to avoid it the first of these is usually pretended, the last is almost impossible, the universal practice is for the second.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Hail fellow, well met.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Wise people are never less alone than when they are alone.
Jonathan Swift
Image
There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I shall be like that tree-I shall die at the top.
Jonathan Swift
Image
My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire I was the Third of five Sons.
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
All Pretences of foretelling by Astrology, are Deceits for this manifest Reason, because the Wise and Learned, who can only judge whether there be any Truth in this Science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise it and none but the poor ignorant Vulgar give it any Credit.
Jonathan Swift
Image
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
Image
I am of the level with common Astrologers who, with an old paltry cant, and a few pot-hooks for planets to amuse the vulgar, have too long been suffered to abuse the world.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.
Jonathan Swift
Image
No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Simplicity, without which no human performance can arrive at perfection.
Jonathan Swift
Image
A college joke to cure the dumps.
Jonathan Swift
Image
It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. Future ages shall talk of this they shall be famous to all posterity whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.
Jonathan Swift
Image
It often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it.
Jonathan Swift