Jonathan Swift Zitate

Jonathan Swift war ein irischer Schriftsteller und Satiriker der frühen Aufklärung. Er hat auch unter folgenden Pseudonymen geschrieben: Isaac Bickerstaff, A Dissenter, A Person of Quality, A Person of Honour, M.B. Drapier, T.R.D.J.S.D.O.P.I.I. . Wikipedia  

✵ 30. November 1667 – 19. Oktober 1745
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Jonathan Swift
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Jonathan Swift Berühmte Zitate

„Genau genommen, leben sehr wenige Menschen in der Gegenwart. Die meisten bereiten sich vor, demnächst zu leben.“

Gedanken über verschiedene Gegenstände / Thoughts on Various Subjects
Original engl.: "Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time."

„Wir haben Religion genug, um einander zu hassen, aber nicht genug, um einander zu lieben.“

Gedanken über verschiedene Gegenstände / Thoughts on Various Subjects
Original engl.: "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."

„Die Selbstliebe mancher Menschen macht sie geneigt, anderen Freude zu bereiten. Die Selbstliebe anderer Menschen wieder beschränkt sich völlig darauf, sich selbst Freude zu bereiten. Dies macht den großen Unterschied zwischen Tugend und Laster.“

Gedanken über verschiedene Gegenstände / Thoughts on Various Subjects
Original engl.: "[…] the self-love of some men inclines them to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and vice."

Jonathan Swift Zitate und Sprüche

„Die besten Ärzte der Welt sind Dr. Diät, Dr. Ruhe und Dr. Fröhlich.“

Polite Conversation
Original engl.: "The best doctors in the world are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Merryman."

„Die Lehre der Stoiker, dass wir unseren Bedürfnissen durch Ausrottung unserer Begierden abhelfen sollen, kommt mir ebenso vor, als wenn wir uns die Füße abschneiden sollten, damit wir keine Schuhe brauchen.“

Gedanken über verschiedene Gegenstände / Thoughts on Various Subjects
Original engl.: "The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes."

„Gesetze sind wie Spinnweben, die kleine Fliegen fangen, aber Wespen und Hornissen entkommen lassen.“

A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind (1707)
Original engl.: "Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through."

„Ich liebe gute, ehrenwerte Bekanntschaft; ich liebe es, der Schlechteste in einer Gesellschaft zu sein.“

Tagebuch für Stella
(Original englisch: "I love good creditable acquaintance: I love to be the worst of the company: [I am not of those that say, 'For want of company, welcome trumpery]." - The Journal to Stella. Letters 23. Chelsea, May 12, 1711. No. 17 p. 119

„Jeder möchte lange leben, aber keiner will alt werden.“

Gedanken über verschiedene Gegenstände / Thoughts on Various Subjects
Original engl.: "Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old." - p. 188 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3AThe_Battle_of_the_Books%2C_and_Other_Short_Pieces.djvu/193

„Und schließlich gleicht der wahre Kritiker beim Lesen eines Buches einem Hunde beim Festmahl, dessen Sinnen und Trachten einzig auf das gerichtet ist, was die Gäste fortwerfen, und der daher dort am meisten knurren wird, wo die wenigsten Knochen abfallen.“

Ein Tonnenmärchen, Dritte Abteilung. Eine Abschweifung, hinsichtlich der Kritiker
Original engl.: "Lastly, a true critic in the perusal of a book is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones." - A Tale of a Tub. 10th edition London 1751. Sec. III: A Disgession concerning Critics. p. 63 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=q1FOAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA63

„Und er [der König von Brobdingnag] gab seine Meinung dahin ab, wer es fertig brächte, zwei Kornähren oder zwei Grashalme auf einem Fleck Bodens zu ziehn, wo zuvor nur einer wuchs, der mache sich mehr um die Menschheit verdient und tue seinem Lande einen wesentlicheren Dienst als das ganze Geschlecht der Politiker zusammengenommen.“

Gullivers Reisen. Teil 2: Reise nach Brobdingnag, Kapitel 7, gutenberg.spiegel.de http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/gullivers-reisen-7565/17
And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together." - Gulliver's Travels. Part II: Voyage to Brobdingnag. Chapter VII en.wikisource https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels/Part_II/Chapter_VII

Jonathan Swift: Zitate auf Englisch

“Yet malice never was his aim;
He lashed the vice but spared the name.
No individual could resent,
Where thousands equally were meant.”

Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift (1731), l. 459
Kontext: Yet malice never was his aim;
He lashed the vice but spared the name.
No individual could resent,
Where thousands equally were meant.
His satire points at no defect
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorred that senseless tribe
Who call it humor when they gibe.

“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.”

Jonathan Swift buch The Battle of the Books

The Battle of the Books, preface (1704)

“As boys do sparrows, with flinging salt upon their tails.”

Jonathan Swift buch A Tale of a Tub

Sect. 7
A Tale of a Tub (1704)

“Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.”

Jonathan Swift buch A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding

A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding

“May you live all the days of your life.”

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2

“Vision is the Art of seeing Things invisible.”

Thoughts on various subjects (Further thoughts on various subjects) (1745)

“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it”

The Examiner No. XIV (Thursday, November 9th, 1710)
Kontext: Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.

“There is nothing in this World constant but Inconstancy”

A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind (1707)
Kontext: ALL Rivers go to the Sea, but none return from it. Xerxes wept when he beheld his Army, to consider that in less than a Hundred Years they would be all Dead. Anacreon was' Choakt with a Grape-stone, and violent Joy Kills as well as violent Grief. There is nothing in this World constant but Inconstancy; yet Plato thought that if Virtue would appear to the World in her own native Dress, all Men would be Enamoured with her. But now since Interest governs the World, and Men neglect the Golden Mean, Jupiter himself, if he came on the Earth would be Despised, unless it were as he did to Danae in a Golden Shower. For Men nowadays Worship the Rising Sun, and not the Setting.

“Men nowadays Worship the Rising Sun, and not the Setting.”

A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind (1707)
Kontext: ALL Rivers go to the Sea, but none return from it. Xerxes wept when he beheld his Army, to consider that in less than a Hundred Years they would be all Dead. Anacreon was' Choakt with a Grape-stone, and violent Joy Kills as well as violent Grief. There is nothing in this World constant but Inconstancy; yet Plato thought that if Virtue would appear to the World in her own native Dress, all Men would be Enamoured with her. But now since Interest governs the World, and Men neglect the Golden Mean, Jupiter himself, if he came on the Earth would be Despised, unless it were as he did to Danae in a Golden Shower. For Men nowadays Worship the Rising Sun, and not the Setting.

“ALL Rivers go to the Sea, but none return from it.”

A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind (1707)
Kontext: ALL Rivers go to the Sea, but none return from it. Xerxes wept when he beheld his Army, to consider that in less than a Hundred Years they would be all Dead. Anacreon was' Choakt with a Grape-stone, and violent Joy Kills as well as violent Grief. There is nothing in this World constant but Inconstancy; yet Plato thought that if Virtue would appear to the World in her own native Dress, all Men would be Enamoured with her. But now since Interest governs the World, and Men neglect the Golden Mean, Jupiter himself, if he came on the Earth would be Despised, unless it were as he did to Danae in a Golden Shower. For Men nowadays Worship the Rising Sun, and not the Setting.

“I said the thing which was not.”

Jonathan Swift buch Gullivers Reisen

For they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood.
Voyage to Houyhnhnms, Ch. 3
Gulliver's Travels (1726)

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

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
Quelle: Abolishing Christianity and Other Essays

“Books, the children of the brain.”

Jonathan Swift buch A Tale of a Tub

Sect. 1
A Tale of a Tub (1704)
Quelle: A Tale Of A Tub And Other Writings

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

“Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old.”

Jonathan Swift buch Gullivers Reisen

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
Variante: All would live long, but none would be old.
Quelle: Gulliver's Travels

“Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired…”

Letter to a Young Clergyman (January 9, 1720), on proving Christianity to unbelievers

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

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

“Laws are like Cobwebs which may catch small Flies, but let Wasps and Hornets break through.”

A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind (1707)
Kontext: Laws are like Cobwebs which may catch small Flies, but let Wasps and Hornets break through. But in Oratory the greatest Art is to hide Art.

“Libertas et natale solum:
Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em.”

Verses Occasioned by Whitshed's Motto on his Coach (1724); the Latin indicates "liberty and my native land", and Whitshed was a chief justice enraged by The Drapier's Letters

“Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of a style.”

Letter to a Young Clergyman http://www.online-literature.com/swift/religion-church-vol-one/7/ (January 9, 1720)

“No wise man ever wished to be younger.”

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

“You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday”

Alexander Pope, Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727), Published in Swift's Miscellanies (1727)
Misattributed
Variante: 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.

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