Quote

The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age but that of a good one will not reform it.

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
Prince
Vicious
Reform
Kings
Example
Alone
Age
Corrupt
Good

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
A true critic, in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones.
Jonathan Swift
Image
As love without esteem is capricious and volatile esteem without love is languid and cold.
Jonathan Swift
Image
No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.
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
There is nothing in this world constant, but inconstancy.
Jonathan Swift
Image
A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting.
Jonathan Swift
Image
No man will take counsel, but every man will take money. Therefore, money is better than counsel.
Jonathan Swift
Image
It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be: and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.
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
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
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.
Jonathan Swift
Image
The two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
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
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
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.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Ale is meat, drink and cloth it will make a cat speak and a wise man dumb.
Jonathan Swift
Image
This Day, whate'er the Fates decree Shall still be kept with Joy by me: This Day then, let us not be told, That you are sick, and I grown old
Jonathan Swift
Image
Philosophy! the lumber of the schools.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Careful observers may foretell the hour (By sure prognostics) when to dread a show'r. While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
Jonathan Swift