Jonathan Swift

Irish satirist, author of Gulliver's Travels, 1667–1745. Explained quotes.

No quotes match these filters yet. New quotes are added every week.

About Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish clergyman, Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, and the sharpest satirist of his age. Gulliver’s Travels (1726) mocks politics, science and human pride, and his essay A Modest Proposal (1729) remains the most famous example of savage irony in English.

More lines by Swift

Short quotes checked against their sources.

“Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind ... than the whole race of politicians put together.”
Gulliver's Travels, Part II, Chapter 7, 1726
“Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.”
Gulliver's Travels, Part II, Chapter 1, 1726