WIST

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
Full text.

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
Full text.

The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
Full text.

When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign: that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
Full text.

Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
Full text.

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
Full text.

It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
Full text.

Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
Full text.

That was excellently observed, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
Full text.

May you live all the days of your life.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation, Dialogue 2 (1738)

That is as well said as if I had said it myself.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation, Dialogue 2 (1738)

There is none so blind as they that won’t see.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation, Dialogue 3 (1738)

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind (1707)

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.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Modest Proposal (1729)

But nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Preface to the Bishop of Sarum’s Introduction to the Third Volume of the History of the Reformation of the Church of England (8 Dec 1713)

Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched beneath.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Tale of a Tub, Preface (1704)

Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Tale of a Tub, Sec. 9 (1704)
Commonly paraphrased as above.  The full quote (emphasis mine):

It would be a mighty advantage accruing to the public from this inquiry that all these would very much excel and arrive at great perfection in their several kinds, which I think is manifest from what I have already shown, and shall enforce by this one plain instance, that even I myself, the author of these momentous truths, am a person whose imaginations are hard-mouthed and exceedingly disposed to run away with his reason, which I have observed from long experience to be a very light rider, and easily shook off; upon which account my friends will never trust me alone without a solemn promise to vent my speculations in this or the like manner, for the universal benefit of human kind, which perhaps the gentle, courteous, and candid reader, brimful of that modern charity and tenderness usually annexed to his office, will be very hardly persuaded to believe.

Full text.

Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding (1754)

‘Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery’s the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Cadenus and Vanessa (1713)

This evil fortune, which generally attends extraordinary men in the management of great affairs, has been imputed to divers causes, that need not be here set down, when so obvious a one occurs, if what a certain writer observes be true, that when a great genius appears in the world the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Essay on the Fates of Clergymen (1728)
Restatement of this earlier thought.

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.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Gulliver’s Travels, 2.7 (1726)

Poor Nations are hungry, and rich Nations are proud, and Pride and Hunger will ever be at Variance.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Gulliver’s Travels, ch. 5 “Voyage to Houyhnhnms” (1726)

And he gave it for his opinion, that whosoever 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.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Gulliver’s Travels, ch. 6 “Voyage to Brobdingnag” (1726)

And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid ….

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Hints Toward an Essay on Conversation (1709)

I ’ve often wish’d that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year;
A handsome house to lodge a friend;
A river at my garden’s end;
A terrace walk, and half a rood
Of land set out to plant a wood.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Imitation of Horace, Book II, Sat. 6

As learned commentators view
In Homer more than Homer knew.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
On Poetry (1733)

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
The Battle of the Books, preface (1704)

There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake, though all the World sees them to be in downright nonsense.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
The Tatler #63 (Sep 1709)

Ubi saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit

[Where savage indignation can lacerate his heart no more.]

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Epitaph
Inscribed on his grave, St. Patrick's, Dublin.