Quote

Perpetual aiming at wit is a very bad part of conversation. It is done to support a character: it generally fails it is a sort of insult on the company, and a restraint upon the speaker.

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
Failing
Speakers
Sort
Restraint
Support
Fails
Company
Wit
Upon
Perpetual
Part
Insult
Character
Generally
Aiming
Done
Conversation
Speaker

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Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.
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In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man uncapable of holding any public station for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence.
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It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
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Love why do we one passion call, When 'tis a compound of them all? Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet, In all their equipages meet Where pleasures mix'd with pains appear, Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.
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Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending. May you live all the days of your life.
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Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex.
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You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday
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Philosophy! the lumber of the schools.
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Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
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... the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion ... that is to say all those who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers.
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No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.
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A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.
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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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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
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A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
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Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired
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Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.
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There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them.
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The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
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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.
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