Jonathan Swift Quotes

Many men talk like philosophers and live like fools.

My good friend, you are a citizen of Athens, a city which is very great and very famous for its wisdom and power - are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?

If I have one wish which is greater than another, it is, if I had the power, to make men do right; to make them stop their swearing, their lying, their deceiving, to stop trying to injure the innocent, and begin to be honest and upright in all their dealings with one another and honor the name of the Deity.

What we take for virtue is often nothing but an assemblage of different actions, and of different interests, that fortune or our industry knows how to arrange.

He who learns the rules of wisdom, without conforming to them in his life, is like a man who labored in his fields, but did not sow

Be wise, because the world needs more wisdom. And if you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would.

We can be the best taught people on the face of the earth but the trouble is we don't live as well as we have been taught.

A good woman is known by what she does; a good man by what he doesn't.

Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.

One of the old philosophers says that it is the part of wisdom to sometimes seem a fool; but in our day there are too many ready-made ones to render this a desirable policy.

Ah woe is me, through all my daysWisdom and wealth I both have got,And fame and name and great men's praise;But Love, ah! Love I have it not.

It is of no profit to have learned well, if you neglect to do well.

Thus we play the fool with the time and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.

True greatness is sovereign wisdom. We are never deceived by our virtues.

All the worth of some people lies in their name; upon a closer inspection it dwindles to nothing, but from a distance it deceives us.

Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretenses to both.

None is so wise, but the foole overtakes him.

If you have to do with one who is unquestionably a slanderer, do not excuse him by calling him frank and free-spoken; do not call one who is notoriously vain, liberal and elegant; do not call dangerous levities mere simplicity; do not screen disobedience under the name of zeal; or arrogance, of frankness; or evil intimacy, of friendship. No, my friends, we must never, in our wish to shun slander, foster or flatter vice in others: but we must call evil evil, and sin sin, and so doing we shall serve God's glory.

The highest of all is not to understand the highest but to act upon it.

Advice, as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or most judicious. But for the same reason everyone is eager to instruct his neighbours. To be wise or to be virtuous is to buy dignity and importance at a high price; but when nothing is necessary to elevation but detection of the follies or faults of others, no man is so insensible to the voice of fame as to linger on the ground.

And if my present actions strike you as foolish, let's just say I've been accused of folly by a fool.

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

But some most worthless persons are in the habit of carrying about the name of Jesus Christ in wicked guile, while yet they practice things unworthy of God, and hold opinions contrary to the doctrine of Christ, to their own destruction, and that of those who give credit to them, whom you must avoid as ye would wild beasts.