Jonathan Swift — "Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed…"

"Few are qualified to shine in company; but it is in most men's power to be agreeable."

"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."

"I cannot but conclude that 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."

"Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through."

"Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her person for the worse."