Jonathan Swift Quotes

When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.
Jonathan Swift

Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy, is the best bred in the company.
Jonathan Swift

The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.
Jonathan Swift

I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.
Jonathan Swift

There's none so blind as they that won't see.
Jonathan Swift

We are so fond of each other because our ailments are the same.
Jonathan Swift

Brutes find out where their talents lie; a bear will not attempt to fly.
Jonathan Swift

An excuse is a lie guarded.
Jonathan Swift

A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying ... that he is wiser today than yesterday.
Jonathan Swift

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
Jonathan Swift

Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.
Jonathan Swift