"If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put Gulliver's Travels among them."

"Swift’s claim to his rest from ‘savage indignation’ was also, characteristically, a literary allusion. In his First Satire, Juvenal splenetically explains why he finds himself writing satire at all. He stands in the streets of Rome, he says, and watches the monsters of vice that pass by. His gorge rises and he just has to write about it: ‘si natura negat, facit indignatio versum.’ ‘Though nature forbids, indignation makes the verse.’ Satire is forced into being by the pressure of the times. The satirist’s anger – for which, in later ages, Juvenal became a representative – makes silence impossible. It is strange to find ‘sæva indignatio’ on Swift’s memorial tablet, a tablet that notably does not contain any mention of the usual Christian consolations – any hope of salvation or another life beyond this one. It is strange because Swift had distanced the satirical writings from his own feelings: they were written in the voices of personae whose attitudes and beliefs had been chosen precisely because they were not, apparently, his own, and published anonymously or pseudonymously. Gulliver is the most famous, but there are many others: sometimes evidently foolish, sometimes worryingly lucid; self-righteous or ‘humble’; piously outraged or alarmingly dispassionate. None of them speaks for Swift. Readers have often imagined the author’s fury or disgust or horror, but without actually hearing his voice. And yet, at the end, he seemed to declare that the satire came from his own wounded heart."

"The rogue never hazards a figure."

"Swift has a higher reputation than he deserves. His excellence is strong sense; for his humour, though very well, is not remarkably good. I doubt whether The Tale of a Tub be his; for he never owned it, and it is much above his worldly manner."

"[M]y eye fell upon a little book, in a bookseller's window, on the outside of which was written: "A TALE OF A TUB; PRICE 3d." The title was so odd, that my curiosity was excited. I had the 3d. but, then, I could have no supper. In I went, and got the little book, which I was so impatient to read, that I got over into a field, at the upper corner of Kew gardens, where there stood, a hay-stack. On the shady side of this, I sat down to read. The book was so different from any thing that I had ever read before: it was something so new to my mind, that, though I could not at all understand some of it, it delighted me beyond description; and it produced what I have always considered a sort of birth of intellect."

"I re-read Jonathan Swift's A Tale of the Tub twice a year, but that's to punish myself. It is, I think, the most powerful, nonfictive prose in the English language, but it's a kind of vehement satire upon visionary projectors as it were, like myself, and so I figure it is a good tonic and corrective for me."

"Gulliver's Travels is to early modern philosophy what Aristophanes’ The Clouds was to early ancient philosophy. … Swift objects to Enlightenment because it encourages a hypertrophic development of mathematics, physics and astronomy, thus returning to the pre-Socratic philosophy that Aristophanes had criticized for being unselfconscious or unable to understand man. But, unlike pre-Socratic philosophy, which had no interest in politics at all, this science wished to rule and could rule. The new science had indeed generated sufficient power to rule, but in order to do so had had to lose the human perspective. In other words, Swift denied that modern science had actually established a human or political science. All to the contrary, it had destroyed it."

"A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."

"As love without esteem is volatile and capricious; esteem without love is languid and cold."

"There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate."

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."

"Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond."

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

"I conceive it is a vulgar error in translating poets, to affect being fidus interpres... [for] poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum, there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words... therefore if Virgil must needs speak English, it were fit he should speak not only as a man of this nation, but as man of this age."

"A nightcap decked his brows instead of bay, A cap by night — a stocking all the day!"

"In the time of the civill warres, George Withers, the poet, begged Sir John Denham's estate at Egham of the Parliament, in whose cause he was a captaine of horse. It happened that G. W. was taken prisoner, and was in danger of his life, having written severely against the king, &c. Sir John Denham went to the king, and desired his majestie not to hang him, for that whilest G. W. lived he should not be the worst poet in England."

"We're ne'er like angels till our passion dies."

"Search not to find what lies too deeply hid, Nor to know things whose knowledge is forbid; Nor climb on pyramids, which thy head turn round Standing, and whence no safe descent is found."

"Let not the pleasing many thee delight, First judge if those whom thou dost please judge right."

"Search not to find how other men offend, But by that glass thy own offences mend; Still seek to learn, yet care not much from whom, (So it be learning) or from whence it come. Of thy own actions, others' judgments learn; Often by small, great matters we discern: Youth what man's age is like to be doth show; We may our ends by our beginnings know."

"When any great design thou dost intend, Think of the means, the manner, and the end."

"Books should to one of these four ends conduce, For wisdom, piety, delight, or use."

"Wisdom of what herself approves makes choice, Nor is led captive by the common voice. Clear-sighted Reason Wisdom's judgment leads, And Sense, her vassal, in her footsteps treads. That thou to Truth the perfect way may'st know, To thee all her specific forms I'll show: He that the way to honesty will learn, First what's to be avoided must discern. Thyself from flatt'ring self-conceit defend, Nor what thou dost not know to know pretend. Some secrets deep in abstruse darkness lie: To search them thou wilt need a piercing eye. Not rashly therefore to such things assent, Which, undeceived, thou after may'st repent; Study and time in these must thee instruct, And others' old experience may conduct. Wisdom herself her ear doth often lend To counsel offer'd by a faithful friend."

"Wisdom's first progress is to take a view What's decent or indecent, false or true."

"That servile path thou nobly dost decline Of tracing word by word, and line by line; A new and nobler way thou dost pursue To make translations, and translators too; They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame, True to his sense, but truer to his fame."

"Nor ought a genius less than his that writ Attempt translation."

"[U]ncertain ways unsafest are."

"Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate, That few but such as cannot write, translate."

"The best-humour'd man, with the worst-humour'd Muse."

"When he talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff."

"Who peppered the highest was surest to please."

"He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back."

"On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting; 'Twas only that when he was off he was acting."

"As a wit, if not first, in the very first line."

"Here lies David Garrick, describe me, who can, An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man."

"A flattering painter, who made it his care To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are."

"His conduct still right, with his argument wrong."

"Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much; Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind; Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote. Who too deep for his hearers still went on refining, And thought of convincing while they thought of dining: Though equal to all things, for all things unfit; Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit."

"Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth: If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt."

"Our Garrick's a salad; for in him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!"

"We modest Gentlemen don't want for much success among the women."

"Baw! Damme, but I'll fight you both, one after the other! With baskets."

"Oh sir! I must not tell my age. They say women and music should never be dated."

"Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs."

"Travellers, George, must pay in all places: the only difference is, that in good inns, you pay dearly for your luxuries, and in bad inns you are fleeced and starved."

"They liked the book the better the more it made them cry."

"We are the boys That fear no noise Where the thundering cannons roar."

"The first blow is half the battle."

"A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation."

"I'll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon."