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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

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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
Cutting
Lost
Never
Razors
Wits
Employed
Wit
Edge
Edges

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

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When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.
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In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.
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A Child will make two Dishes at an Entertainment for Friends and when the Family dines alone, the fore or hind Quarter will makea reasonable Dish and seasoned with a little Pepper or Salt, will be very good Boiled on the fourth Day, especially in Winter.
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Many a truth is told in jest.
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What they do in heaven we are ignorant of what they do not do we are told expressly.
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That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.
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Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
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A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour.
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When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.
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Conscience signifies that knowledge which a man hath of his own thoughts and actions and because, if a man judgeth fairly of his actions by comparing them with the law of God, his mind will approve or condemn him this knowledge or conscience may be both an accuser and a judge.
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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.
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The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age but that of a good one will not reform it.
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That incessant envy wherewith the common rate of mankind pursues all superior natures to their own.
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It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.
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Ever eating, never cloying, All-devouring, all-destroying Never finding full repast, Till I eat the world at last.
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He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.
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The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.
Jonathan Swift
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Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline.
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Tis nothing when you are used to it.
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An intelligent person should put money in the beginning, but not in heart
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