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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

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)