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Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.

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
Life
Anarchy
Arbitrary
Step
Steps
Natural
Power
Despotism
Firsts
Savage
First
Savages

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I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
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Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.
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If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
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A chuck under the chin is worth two kisses.
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In all I wish, how happy should I be, Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee? So weak thou art that fools thy power despise And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
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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.
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Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.
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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.
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Hail, follow, well met, All dirty and wet: Find out, if you can, Who's master, who's man.
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Rebukes are easy from our betters, From men of quality and letters But when low dunces will affront, What man alive can stand the brunt?
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Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.
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Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
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O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee.
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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.
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Pray steal me not, I'm Mrs. Dingley's, Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies.
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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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For, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition: that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
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Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
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Men of wit, learning and virtue might strike out every offensive or unbecoming passage from plays.
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Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.
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