Jonathan Swift

"The arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are formed and fashioned by the hands of time."

"Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken."

"If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, and divinity, he would see how much he owes to education."

"The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it."

"Ireland is the bonfire which will some day consume the security of England."

"Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her person."

"A person is never ridiculous for being what he is, but only for affecting to be what he is not."

"The stoic philosophers taught self-sufficiency; but when it comes to actual practice, they fail."

"The character of a gentleman is the highest title of nobility."

"Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse."

"Tis an old observation that the best doctors leave the kingdom."

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment."

"We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love."

"He that knows himself does not know his ass from a hole in the ground."

"Whoever can make two ears of corn grow where one grew before is more worthy than all the conquerors."

"There are some maxims which should be sacred to nations."

"The power of continuing to love one who loves you is a great power indeed."

"I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed."

"May you live in interesting times."

"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."

"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others."

"Haters will broadcast your failure, but whisper your success."

"Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

"Men are happiest when they are most free."

"The happy man is not he who seems thus to others, but he who seems thus to himself."

"He is a merciful man who would give a sick man a laxative."

"The public is wonderfully tolerant; it forgives everything except genius."

"Some men's eyes are bigger than their belly."

"Every stone in Jerusalem tells of learning and piety."

"Nature has made a sort of chimaera, where contrariety of nature produces harmony."