Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals, are in imitation of fighting. – Jonathan Swift
Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room. – Jonathan Swift
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. – Jonathan Swift
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery. – Jonathan Swift
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him. – Jonathan Swift
The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit. – Jonathan Swift
Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age. – Jonathan Swift
There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails. – Jonathan Swift
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. – Jonathan Swift
As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold. – Jonathan Swift
Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. – Jonathan Swift
We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. – Jonathan Swift
Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction. – Jonathan Swift
The latter part of a wise person’s life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier. – Jonathan Swift
