Jonathan Swift !

Look at what he wrote in 17th century, it's hard to imagine a person in Dublin, Ireland, 300 hundred years ago has such a foresight .

Let's read some of his quote:

(Reflect on things past as wars, negotiations, factions, etc. We enter so little into those interests, that we wonder how men could possibly be so busy and concerned for things so transitory; look on the present times, we find the same humour, yet wonder not at all.)



(How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they will not so much as take warning?)


(No preacher is listened to but Time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that older people have tried in vain to put into our heads before.)


(When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.)

(Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy.)

(The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.)

(When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.)

(One argument to prove that the common relations of ghosts and spectres are generally false, may be drawn from the opinion held that spirits are never seen by more than one person at a time; that is to say, it seldom happens to above one person in a company to be possessed with any high degree of spleen or melancholy.)

(It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. FUTURE AGES SHALL TALK OF THIS; THIS SHALL BE FAMOUS TO ALL POSTERITY. Whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.)


(When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.)



(I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.)


(I am apt to think that, in the day of Judgment, there will be small allowance given to the wise for their want of morals, nor to the ignorant for their want of faith, because both are without excuse. This renders the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But, some scruples in the wise, and some vices in the ignorant, will perhaps be forgiven upon the strength of temptation to each.)

(It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.)

(In all well-instituted commonwealths, care has been taken to limit men's possessions; which is done for many reasons, and among the rest, for one which perhaps is not often considered: that when bounds are set to men's desires, after they have acquired as much as the laws will permit them, their private interest is at an end, and they have nothing to do but to take care of the public.)

(I never heard a finer piece of satire against lawyers than that of astrologers, when they pretend by rules of art to tell when a suit will end, and whether to the advantage of the plaintiff or defendant; thus making the matter depend entirely upon the influence of the stars, without the least regard to the merits of the cause.)

(If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!)

(What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.)

(Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death.)


There are so many , when I have time I will post more of his quotes...........................