Tao Te Ching
Jonathan Swift
1667 – 1745 CE
"Foremost prose satirist in the English language"
Poet, cleric, satirist, and political essayist; Swift became the most popular Irish author. His book, Gulliver’s Travels became the most popular work of Irish literature in international libraries. Although George Orwell said he disagreed with him on almost every issue, he listed him as one of his most-admired writers. Deeply involved in politics, he published many powerfully influential political pamphlets—all so provacative he had to publish anonymously or use a pseudonym.
Lineages
British Historians / Journalists Poets
Eras
Chinese
Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912 CE)Unlisted Sources
Drapier's Letters (1733)
Gulliver's Travels
Thoughts on Various Subjects (1703)
Thoughts on Various Subjects (1711)
Quotes by Jonathan Swift (16 quotes)
“When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
from Thoughts on Various Subjects (1703)
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from Thoughts on Various Subjects (1703)
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“The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.”
from Thoughts on Various Subjects (1703)
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“Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Aeneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.”
from Thoughts on Various Subjects (1703)
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“If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!”
from Thoughts on Various Subjects (1703)
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“What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.”
from Thoughts on Various Subjects (1703)
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“Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince, as wine and women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age, or vanity to a woman.”
from Thoughts on Various Subjects (1703)
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“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”
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“I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.”
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“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.”
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“all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery”
from Drapier's Letters (1733)
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“Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance. For these reasons, the trade of a soldier is held the most honorable of all others; because a soldier is a Yahoo hired to kill in cold blood as many of his own species—who have never offended him,—as possibly he can.”
from Gulliver's Travels
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“Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old.”
from Thoughts on Various Subjects (1703)
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“Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve more of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
from Gulliver's Travels
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“Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.”
from Thoughts on Various Subjects (1711)
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