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Jonathan Swift Quotes
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Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift".

Swift is remembered for works such as A Tale of a Tub , An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity , Gulliver's Travels , and A Modest Proposal . He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms – such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M. B. Drapier – or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.

His deadpan, ironic writing style, particularly in A Modest Proposal, has led to such satire being subsequently termed "Swiftian". Wikipedia  

✵ 30. November 1667 – 19. October 1745
Jonathan Swift photo
Jonathan Swift: 141 quotes6 likes

Jonathan Swift Quotes

“Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion.”

Jonathan Swift

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

“If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.”

Jonathan Swift

Letter to Miss Vanhomrigh (August 12, 1720)

“The two maxims of any great man at court are always to keep his countenance and never to keep his word.”

Jonathan Swift

http://books.google.com/books?id=eRwwAAAAMAAJ&q="The+two+maxims+of+any+great+man+at+court+are+always+to+keep+his+countenance+and+never+to+keep+his+word"&pg=PA262#v=onepage
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

“The sight of you is good for sore eyes.”

Jonathan Swift

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 1

“It is a maxim, that those to whom everybody allows the second place have an undoubted title to the first.”

Jonathan Swift book A Tale of a Tub

Dedication
A Tale of a Tub (1704)

“There's two words to that bargain.”

Jonathan Swift

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 3

“A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.”

Jonathan Swift

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

“When I behold this I sighed, and said within myself, "Surely mortal man is a broomstick!" Nature sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, till the axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him a withered trunk; he then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, valuing himself upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that never grew on his head; but now should this our broomstick pretend to enter the scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and all covered with dust, through the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judges that we are of our own excellencies, and other men's defaults!”

Jonathan Swift

Meditation on a Broomstick (1703–1710)

“For conversation well endued;
She calls it witty to be rude;
And, placing raillery in railing,
Will tell aloud your greatest failing.”

Jonathan Swift

The Furniture of a Woman's Mind (1727)

“I thought you and he were hand-in-glove.”

Jonathan Swift

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2

“A penny for your thoughts.”

Jonathan Swift

Introduction.
Polite Conversation (1738)

“There was all the world and his wife.”

Jonathan Swift

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 3

“Nothing is so great an instance of ill manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; if you flatter only one or two, you affront the rest.”

Jonathan Swift

Hints on Good Manners

“Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.”

Jonathan Swift book A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding

A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding

“We are so fond of one another, because our ailments are the same.”

Jonathan Swift

Journal to Stella (February 1, 1711)

“Lord M. What religion is he of?
Lord Sp. Why, he is an Anythingarian.”

Jonathan Swift

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 1

“She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse.”

Jonathan Swift

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 3

“Hail fellow, well met.”

Jonathan Swift

My Lady's Lamentation, The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. II, edited by William Ernst Browning (1910); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“I know nothing of music; I would not give a farthing for all the music in the universe.”

Jonathan Swift

Observations on Lord Orrery's Remarks on Life of Swift, Delany, (1754), p. 192.
Disputed

“Write your own name and your sweetheart's, with the smoke of a candle on the roof of the kitchen, or the servants hall, to show your learning.”

Jonathan Swift