Jonathan Swift — "The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity…"
The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a torrent of words.
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
"I have been for some years past, working upon a great work, which I intend to publish, and it is a complete refutation of all that hath ever been written upon the subject of government."
"And it is to be hoped that no gentleman will be so uncivil as to refuse to dine upon a child who has been so well fattened."
"A physician is an unfortunate gentleman who is every day required to perform a miracle; namely, to reconcile health with intemperance."
"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."
"Promises and pie-crusts are made to be broken."
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.