Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind. – Jonathan Swift
It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not. – Jonathan Swift
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel. – 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
I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution. – Jonathan Swift
Under this window in stormy weather I marry this man and woman together; Let none but Him who rules the thunder Put this man and woman asunder. – Jonathan Swift
The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes. – Jonathan Swift
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own. – Jonathan Swift
It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. – Jonathan Swift
Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest. – Jonathan Swift
Where there are large powers with little ambition… nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes. – Jonathan Swift
Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of. – Jonathan Swift
Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath. – Jonathan Swift
What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly. – Jonathan Swift
