Irish satirist. cleric, political pamphleteer.
He is best known for Gulliver's Travels, an account of Lemuel Gulliver's fanciful voyages. Jonathan Swift also published
numerous political pamphlets. The most sensational of these short works, "A Modest Proposal," is generally considered to be
the most famous satirical essay in the English language.
He became a staunch supporter of the Protestant Church and worked hard to publicise the plight of his fellow Irishmen, who
were being treated despicably by the English at the time.
Swift did not believe much in the new theoretical science and rational philosophy. He did not think that it would contribute
to the moral improvement of people. On the contrary, he saw it as a very dangerous display of pride and confidence in the powers of human reasoning.
This undermined what he believed was the most important point of traditional Christian faith, the belief that human beings
are fundamentally flawed creatures.
(1667-1745)
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.
~ Jonathan Swift
Every dog must have his day.
~ Jonathan Swift
Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.
~ Jonathan Swift
Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes.
~ Jonathan Swift
Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
~ Jonathan Swift
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.
~ Jonathan Swift
It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath 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.
~ Jonathan Swift
Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.
~ Jonathan Swift
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
~ Jonathan Swift
My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.
~ Jonathan Swift
It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.
~ Jonathan Swift
There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.
~ Jonathan Swift
As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.
~ Jonathan Swift
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.
~ Jonathan Swift
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
~ Jonathan Swift
May you live all the days of your life.
~ Jonathan Swift
Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.
~ Jonathan Swift
Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room.
~ Jonathan Swift
He was a bold man that first eat on oyster.
~ Jonathan Swift
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
~ Jonathan Swift
He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.
~ Jonathan Swift
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
~ Jonathan Swift
Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.
~ Jonathan Swift
It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.
~ Jonathan Swift
The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style.
~ Jonathan Swift
Hunt was a poet of charm and technical skill, who developed an interest in politics and poetry.
He was an able translator and playwright, Leigh Hunt excelled as an essayist, literary critic and letter writer. His concern was always to 'open
more widely the door of the library', to share his literary enthusiasms and extend his readers' tastes.
This anthology draws on the full range of Hunt's poetry and prose, revealing a writer committed to the humane and civilizing powers of literature
and friendship.
He upset the authorities by pointing out on the front page of every edition of his political journal called the "Examiner", that half the cost
of the price was the result of the government's "tax on knowledge".
In 1812 Leigh along with his brother John, were arrested and charged with libel after publishing an article criticizing the Prince Regent.
The brothers were found guilty and sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
(1784-1859)
Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start
where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
~ George Herbert
Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies.
~ Mark Twain
History would be an excellent thing, if only it were true.
~ Leo Tolstoy
