Jonathan Swift

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

The reason why so few marriages are happy, is, because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever has 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.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion.

Few are qualified to shine in company; but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.

The only difference between a wise man and a fool is, that the wise man knows himself to be a fool, and the fool knows himself to be wise.

I am not concerned to prove the justice of my opinion, but to show its usefulness.

I could name a country which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without salt.

For we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that health is the most valuable of all possessions; and that it is to be acquired by eating, and by drinking, and by sleeping, and by exercise, and by all the other pleasures of life.

The three grand enemies of human happiness are public envy, civil discord, and religious faction.

What they do in the north, they do not in the south.

As for yourself, whom I have the honour to know, you are a person of distinction, and would have been an ornament to any court in Europe.

But the greatest part of the world are such as would be glad to have their consciences eased, and to live in a state of nature.

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide what they fear to show.

The choicest productions of wit, are spoiled by the too much relish of the author.

It is an old maxim, that a wise man may change his mind, a fool never.

The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a torrent of words.

Eloquence, as well as the other fine arts, must be cultivated with care.

The greatest inventions were at first but the rudiments of experiments.