Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.
Jonathan Swift

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

Observation is an old man's memory.
Jonathan Swift

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

One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.
Jonathan Swift

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
Jonathan Swift

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

Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.
Jonathan Swift

Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.
Jonathan Swift

Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.
Jonathan Swift

Proper words in proper places make the true definiton of style.
Jonathan Swift

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.
Jonathan Swift

The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.
Jonathan Swift

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

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.
Jonathan Swift

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

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
Jonathan Swift

The want of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.
Jonathan Swift

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