But you think ... that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.

(Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish satirist. Letter, March 21, 1729, to statesman and author Viscount Bolingbroke.)

Triumphant Tories, and desponding Whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.

(Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish poet, satirist, clergyman. A Description of a City Shower (l. 41-42). . . The Complete Poems [Jonathan Swift]. Pat Rogers, ed. (1983) Penguin Books.)

Sweeping from butcher's stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud,
Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.

(Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish poet, satirist, clergyman. A Description of a City Shower (l. 61-63). . . The Complete Poems [Jonathan Swift]. Pat Rogers, ed. (1983) Penguin Books.)

Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threat'ning with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the daggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.

(Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish poet, satirist, clergyman. A Description of a City Shower (l. 31-34). . . The Complete Poems [Jonathan Swift]. Pat Rogers, ed. (1983) Penguin Books.)

Careful observers may foretell the hour
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a show'r.
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.

(Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish poet, satirist, clergyman. A Description of a City Shower (l. 1-4). . . The Complete Poems [Jonathan Swift]. Pat Rogers, ed. (1983) Penguin Books.)

Duns at his lordship's gate began to meet;
And brickdust Moll had screamed through half the street.
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees:
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands,
And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.

(Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish poet, satirist, clergyman. A Description of the Morning (l. 13-18). . . The Complete Poems [Jonathan Swift]. Pat Rogers, ed. (1983) Penguin Books.)

Now hardly here and there an hackney coach
Appearing, showed the ruddy morn's approach.
Now Betty from her master's bed had flown,
And softly stole to discompose her own;
The slipshod 'prentice from his master's door
Had pared the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor.

(Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish poet, satirist, clergyman. A Description of the Morning (l. 1-6). . . The Complete Poems [Jonathan Swift]. Pat Rogers, ed. (1983) Penguin Books.)

Whatever we have got has been by infinite labour, and search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.

(Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish satirist. repr. in Jonathan Swift: A Critical Edition of the Major Works, eds. Angus Ross and David Woolley (1984). Aesop, in The Battle of the Books (written 1697, published 1704). Aesop, representing the Ancients, likened them to a bee, as opposed to the spider which stood for the Moderns. The phrase "sweetness and light" was taken up by critic Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy (see perfection).)

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.

(Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish satirist. repr. In The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, vol. 12, ed. Herbert Davies (1955). A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or the Country (1729). This ironic pamphlet subverted current Whig notions of people being "the wealth of the nation" in the context of the poverty and hunger in Ireland. See also Swift under "famine" for a related comment.)

It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.

(Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Anglo-Irish satirist. Gulliver, in "A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms," pt. 4, ch. 5, Gulliver's Travels (1726). Describing his native land.)