Jonathan Swift — "The greatest ornament of an eminent character is humility."
The greatest ornament of an eminent character is humility.
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More from Jonathan Swift
"It is the folly of too many, to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom."
"Fine words! I wonder where you stole them."
"But the greatest part of the world are such as would be glad to have their consciences eased, and to live in a state of nature."
"I have always held the principle that a nation should be governed by laws, and not by the caprice of a monarch."
"I have spent my time in writing, and have not been a man of action."
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.