Jonathan Swift

My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.

The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.

It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.

Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.

Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals, are in imitation of fighting.

A tavern is a place where madness is sold by the bottle.

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and speakers because, whoever shares his thoughts with the public will convince them as he himself appears convinced.

There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.

Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.

Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.

The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.

There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.

Observation is an old man's memory.

Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.

Don't set your wit against a child.

I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour.

It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.

Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.