Jonathan Swift Berühmte Zitate
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."
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."
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."
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."
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
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
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
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
“I shall be like that tree; I shall die from the top.”
Predicting that he would go senile, as quoted in The Highway of Letters and its Echos of Famous Footsteps (1893) by Thomas Archer, p. 380
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
“So weak thou art, that fools thy power despise;
And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.”
To Love, found in Miss Vanhomrigh's desk after her death, in Swift's handwriting
“Reason is a very light rider and easily shook off.”
As quoted in The World's Laconics : Or, The Best Thoughts Of The Best Authors (1827) by Johan TImbs, p. 25
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
“Hobbes clearly proves that every creature
Lives in a state of war by nature.”
On Poetry: Poetry, a Rhapsody (1733)
Brother Protestants; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
“Not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.”
Letter to Bolingbroke (March 21, 1729); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“I have fed like a farmer: I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.”
Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2
“Lord, I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing!”
Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2
“She has more goodnessin her little finger, than he has in his whole body.”
Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2
“Here is laid the Body
of Jonathan Swift, Doctor of Sacred Theology,
Dean of this Cathedral Church,
where fierce Indignation
can no longer
injure the Heart.
Go forth, Voyager,
and copy, if you can,
this vigorous (to the best of his ability)
Champion of Liberty.”
Hic depositum est Corpus
IONATHAN SWIFT S.T.D.
Hujus Ecclesiæ Cathedralis
Decani,
Ubi sæva Indignatio
Ulterius
Cor lacerare nequit,
Abi Viator
Et imitare, si poteris,
Strenuum pro virili
Libertatis Vindicatorem.
Hic depositum est Corpus
IONATHAN SWIFT S.T.D.
Hujus Ecclesiæ Cathedralis
Decani,
Ubi sæva Indignatio
Ulterius
Cor lacerare nequit,
Abi Viator
Et imitare, si poteris,
Strenuum pro virili
Libertatis Vindicatorem.
Latin epitaph for himself (1740)
Variant translations:
Swift has sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his Breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-Besotted Traveler; he
Served human liberty.
W. B. Yeats, in The Winding Stair (1933)
Here is laid the body of Jonathan Swift, Doctor of Divinity, Dean of this Cathedral Church, where savage indignation can no longer tear his heart. Go, traveller, and imitate if you can one who strove with all his might to champion liberty.
As translated in John Mullan's review of Jonathan Swift by Victoria Glendinning, in London Review of Books, Vol. 20 No. 21 (29 October 1998)
Epitaph (1740)
“Where Young must torture his invention
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.”
On Poetry: Poetry, a Rhapsody (1733)
“But nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want.”
A Preface to the Bishop of Sarum's Introduction to the Third Volume of the History of the Reformation of the Church of England (8 December, 1713)
“Then gave him some familiar Thumps,
A College Joke to cure the Dumps.”
Cassinus and Peter: A Tragical Elegy (1734); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.”
Earlier proverb, quoted in James Howell's English Proverbs (1659)
Better belly burst than good drink lost.
Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
