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

— Jonathan Swift

I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.

— Jonathan Swift

Judges... are picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing anything unbecoming their nature in office.

— Jonathan Swift

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

— Jonathan Swift

Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

— Jonathan Swift

May you live all the days of your life.

— Jonathan Swift

May you live every day of your life.

— Jonathan Swift

Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.

— Jonathan Swift

Most sorts of diversion in men children and other animals are in imitation of fighting.

— Jonathan Swift

No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.

— Jonathan Swift