Conversation is but carving;
Carve for all, yourself is starving:
Give no more to every Guest,
Than he’s able to digest;
Give him always of the Prime;
And but little at a Time.
Carve to all but just enough:
Let them neither starve nor stuff:
And, that you may have your Due,
Let your Neighbours carve for you.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“An Epistle to a Lady Who Desired the Author to Write Some Verses Upon Her in the Heroic Style,” ll. 123-132 (1732)
(Source)
Often rendered with the first line ending in an exclamation point, and the second line missing.
Quotations by:
Swift, Jonathan
‘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,” l. 766ff (1713)
(Source)
It is not a Fault in Company to talk much; but to continue it long, is certainly one; for, if the Majority of those who are got together be naturally silent or cautious, the Conversation will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them, who can start new Subjects, provided he doth not dwell upon them, but leaveth Room for Answers and Replies.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Hints Towards an Essay on Conversation” (c. 1710)
(Source)
Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Letter to a Young Clergyman” (9 Jan 1720)
(Source)
Earliest version of this general sentiment, which has been attributed to (or at times borrowed by) figures such as Sydney Smith, Fisher Ames, and Lyman Beecher.
For more information about this quotation: You Cannot Reason People Out of Something They Were Not Reasoned Into – Quote Investigator.
It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind.
It may be prudent in me to act sometimes by other men’s reason; but I can think only by my own.
You may force men, by interest or punishment, to say or swear they believe, and to act as if they believed; you can go no farther.
Violent zeal for truth has a hundred to one odds to be either petulancy, ambition, or pride.
I believe that thousands of men would be orthodox enough in certain points, if divines had not been too curious, or too narrow, in reducing orthodoxy within the compass of subtleties, niceties, and distinctions, with little warrant from Scripture, and less from reason or good policy.
I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.
Miserable mortals! Can we contribute to the honour and glory of God? I could wish that expression were struck out of our prayer books.
Although reason were intended by Providence to govern our passions; yet it seems that in two points of the greatest moment to the being and continuance of the world, God has intended our passions to prevail over reason. The first is, the propagation of our species; since no wise man ever married from the dictates of reason. The other is, the love of life; which, from the dictates of reason, every man would despise, and wish it at an end, or that it never had a beginning.
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)
(Source)
The latter part of a wise man’s life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
(Source)
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
(Source)
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)
(Source)
Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
(Source)
Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not of.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
(Source)
Yet malice never was his aim;
He lashed the vice but spared the name.
No individual could resent,
Where thousands equally were meant.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift,” l. 459 (1731)
She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on her with a pitchfork.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation (1738)
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)
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)
I have one word to say upon the subject of profound writers, who are grown very numerous of late; and I know very well the judicious world is resolved to list me in that number. I conceive therefore, as to the business of being profound, that it is with writers as with wells — a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there: and often when there is nothing in the world at the bottom besides dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and a-half under-ground, it shall pass, however, for wondrous deep upon no wiser reason than because it is wondrous dark.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Tale of a Tub (1704)
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.
Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding (1754)
Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding (1754)
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)
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.
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)
The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Polite Conversation, Dialog 2 (1738)
Borrowed / popularized from William Bullein, Government of Health, folio 50 (1558): "The first was called doctor diet, the seconde doctor quiet, the thirde doctor merry-man." (1558)
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)
It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
The Conduct of the Allies (1711)
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)
Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Thoughts on Various Subjects (1706)
(Source)
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.
I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Letter to Alexander Pope (29 Sep 1725)
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Letter to Miss Vanhomrigh (12 Aug 1720)
(Source)