Jonathan Swift — "Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen."
Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen.
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More from Jonathan Swift
"Some people take more care to hide their wisdom than their folly."
"The greatest wits, and the greatest fools, are equally innocent of the world."
"For what the world calls virtue, is but a compound of vices."
"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."
"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.
Details
Attributed, but exact source is difficult to pinpoint. Often appears in collections of his sayings.
Date: 18th Century
GeneralVerification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
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