Jonathan Swift

Humble because of knowledge; mighty by reflection.

He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.

I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.

I mean, you lie—under a mistake.

The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.

If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.

We are so fond of one another, because our ailments are the same.

A nice and subtle happiness, I see, as free from passion as indolence, and as foreign from desire as satiety.

Not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.

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.

Those who dislike the clergy are those who fear them.

Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason; their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.

The folly of one man is the fortune of another.

Sweat, dirt, and mangled leather, fill the land with stench and death.

I told him that in the kingdom of Tribnia, by the natives called Langden, where I had sojourned some time, there was a society of men who valued themselves upon their cleanliness.

And he gave it for his opinion, that 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.

I cannot help being of opinion that the Dean is a very great man.

The patient, however, is to be treated with all the tenderness of a Christian, and all the decency of a philosopher.

I said the thing which was not. (For they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood.)

These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of their wisdom.