Jonathan Swift — "He was a bold man that first ate an oyster."
He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Jonathan Swift
"The greatest wits, and the greatest fools, are equally innocent of the world."
"Fine words! I wonder where you stole them."
"I am not fond of giving advice, but when I do, I expect it to be taken."
"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."
"We are told that the world is a great Bedlam, where the lunatics are the majority, and the few who are in their right senses are shut up by the rest."
About Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Anglo-Irish satirist and Dean of Dublin's St Patrick's Cathedral whose Gulliver's Travels (1726) and A Modest Proposal (1729) are the canonical English-language satires. Closely associated with Alexander Pope (Scriblerus Club poet and collaborator) and John Gay (Beggar's Opera author and satirical contemporary). For an intellectual contrast, see Daniel Defoe, English Whig journalist and Robinson Crusoe author (1660-1731) — Defoe's Crusoe (1719) celebrates Enlightenment self-reliance and the colonial-mercantile project; Swift's Gulliver (1726) systematically dismantles every form of human pretension Defoe celebrated. The cleanest Augustan Whig-vs-Tory literary pairing — optimistic-empirical vs misanthropic-satirical.