Quote

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

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
Reputation
Seems
Although
Great
Devil
Inventors
Much
Lies
Improvements
Made
Lying
Continual
Like
Upon
Inventor
Father
Falsehood
Improvement
Lost

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
Desponding Phyllis was endu'd With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, She trembled when a Man drew near Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: If o'er against her you were plac'd She durst not look above your Waist
Jonathan Swift
Image
If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels.
Jonathan Swift
Image
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
Image
A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious and low.
Jonathan Swift
Image
It is an uncontrolled truth, that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
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
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
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
Jonathan Swift
Image
A fig for your bill of fare show me your bill of company.
Jonathan Swift
Image
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
Image
If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.
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
Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.
Jonathan Swift
Image
There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
Jonathan Swift
Image
With a whirl of thought oppressed I sink from reverie to rest. An horrid vision seized my head, I saw the graves give up their dead.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Everybody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to grow old.
Jonathan Swift
Image
How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.
Jonathan Swift
Image
There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them.
Jonathan Swift