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I cannot imagine why we should be at the expense to furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former have made no sort of provision for ours.

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
Ages
Former
Succeed
Furnish
Sort
Succeeding
Imagine
Provision
Age
Expense
Cannot
Expenses
Made
Wit

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A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.
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Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.
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Liberty of conscience is nowadays only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavoring to propagate that belief as much as they can.
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A college joke to cure the dumps.
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What religion is he of? Why, he is an Anythingarian.
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This made me reflect, how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.
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Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
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I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.
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For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back-door
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Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired
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Triumphant Tories, and desponding Whigs, Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.
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He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.
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Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.
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If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels.
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And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.
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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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The two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
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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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In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.
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Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.
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