32 Quotes By Jonathan Swift


Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes.
Jonathan Swift on nature

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
Jonathan Swift on politics

Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.
Jonathan Swift on power

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.
Jonathan Swift on power

We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Jonathan Swift on religion

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 on religion

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 on strength

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.
Jonathan Swift on success

Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind.
Jonathan Swift on learning

So weak thou art that fools thy power despise; And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.
Jonathan Swift on love

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 on marriage

Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices: so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.
Jonathan Swift on success