Quote

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

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
Figures
Understood
Talent
Truth
Mistook
Ever
Uncontrolled
Made
Talents
Good
Ill
Men
Figure

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
Fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The best Maxim I know in this life is, to drink your Coffee when you can, and when you cannot, to be easy without it. While you continue to be splenetic, count upon it I will always preach. Thus much I sympathize with you that I am not cheerful enough to write, for I believe Coffee once a week is necessary to that.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind.
Jonathan Swift
Image
When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.
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
Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred man in company.
Jonathan Swift
Image
So geographers, in Africa maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er uninhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns
Jonathan Swift
Image
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
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
There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity nor any which by ill management makes so contemptible a figure.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Ah, a German and a genius ! A prodigy, admit him !
Jonathan Swift
Image
Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Wise people are never less alone than when they are alone.
Jonathan Swift
Image
No man will take counsel, but every man will take money. Therefore, money is better than counsel.
Jonathan Swift
Image
... the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion ... that is to say all those who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers.
Jonathan Swift
Image
She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination.
Jonathan Swift
Image
If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
Jonathan Swift