Quote

What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he? But rather than they should excel, He'd wish his rivals all in Hell.

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
Writing
Poetry
Would
Brother
Hell
Rather
Excel
Wish
Grieve
Write
Rivals
Wells
Grieving
Well
Poet

More quotes by Jonathan Swift

Image
Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.
Jonathan Swift
Image
There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.
Jonathan Swift
Image
With a whirl of thought oppressed I sink from reverie to rest. An horrid vision seized my head, I saw the graves give up their dead.
Jonathan Swift
Image
I never knew any man cured of inattention.
Jonathan Swift
Image
So, naturalists observe, a flea Hath smaller fleas that on him prey And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum.
Jonathan Swift
Image
By the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England.
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
It often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it.
Jonathan Swift
Image
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.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
Jonathan Swift
Image
No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before.
Jonathan Swift
Image
He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.
Jonathan Swift
Image
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.
Jonathan Swift
Image
It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and malice together, because it gives his answerer double work.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Philosophy! the lumber of the schools.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Two friendships in two breasts requires The same aversions and desires.
Jonathan Swift
Image
She 's no chicken she 's on the wrong side of thirty, if she be a day.
Jonathan Swift
Image
Two women seldom grow intimate but at the expense of a third person.
Jonathan Swift
Image
What we call the Irish Brogue is no sooner discovered, than it makes the deliverer, in the last degree, ridiculous and despised and, from such a mouth, an Englishman expects nothing but bulls, blunders, and follies.
Jonathan Swift
Image
For though, in nature, depth and height Are equally held infinite: In poetry, the height we know 'Tis only infinite below.
Jonathan Swift