Quote

The affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language.

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
Corruption
Late
Ruinous
Words
Affectation
Language
Multiply
Introduce
Authors
Introducing
Cant

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
Jonathan Swift
Image
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I row after health like a waterman.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
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
I'm up and down and round about, Yet all the world can't find me out Though hundreds have employed their leisure, They never yet could find my measure.
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
Image
A maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith.
Jonathan Swift
Image
If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels.
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
I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water.
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
It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.
Jonathan Swift
Image
All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
Jonathan Swift
Image
There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
Jonathan Swift
Image
We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
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
Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.
Jonathan Swift