# The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 10/Thoughts on various Subjects

THOUGHTS
ON
VARIOUS SUBJECTS.
LAWS penned with the utmost care and exactness, and in the vulgar language, are often perverted to wrong meanings; then why should we wonder that the Bible is so?
Although men are accused for not knowing their weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength.
A man seeing a wasp creeping into a vial filled with honey, that was hung on a fruit tree, said thus: Why, thou sottish animal, art thou mad to go into the vial, where you see many hundred of your kind dying before you? The reproach is just, answered the wasp, but not from you men, who are so far from taking example by other people's follies, that you will not take warning by your own. If after falling several times into this vial, and escaping by chance, I should fall in again, I should then but resemble you.
An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that used to steal pieces of money, and hide them in a hole, which the cat observing, asked. Why he would hoard up those round shining things that he could make no use of? Why, said the jackdaw, my master has a whole chest full, and makes no more use of them than I.
​Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly.
If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of criticks and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.
After all the maxims and systems of trade and commerce, a stander by would think the affairs of the world were most ridiculously contrived.
There are few countries, which, if well cultivated, would not support double the number of their inhabitants, and yet fewer where one third part of the people are not extremely stinted even in the necessaries of life. I send out twenty barrels of corn, which would maintain a family in bread for a year, and I bring back in return a vessel of wine, which half a dozen good fellows would drink in less than a month, at the expense of their health and reason.
A motto for the Jesuits:
Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?
A man would have but few spectators, if he offered to show for threepence how he could thrust a redhot iron into a barrel of gunpowder, and it should not take fire.
Query, Whether churches are not dormitories of the living as well as of the dead?
Harry Killegrew said to lord Wharton, "You would not swear at that rate, if you thought you were doing God honour."
A copy of verses kept in the cabinet, and only shown to a few friends, is like a virgin much sought after and admired; but when printed and published, is like a common whore, whom any body may purchase for half a crown.
​Lewis the XIVth of France spent his life in turning a good name into a great.
Since the union of divinity and humanity is the great article of our religion, it is odd to see some clergymen in their writings of divinity, wholly devoid of humanity.
The Epicureans began to spread at Rome in the empire of Augustus, as the Socinians, and even the Epicureans too did in England toward the end of king Charles the Second's reign: which is reckoned, though very absurdly, our Augustan age. They both seem to be corruptions occasioned by luxury and peace, and by politeness beginning to decline.
Sometimes I read a book with pleasure, and detest the author.
At a bookseller's shop some time ago I saw a book with this title; "Poems by the author of the Choice." Not enduring to read a dozen lines, I asked the company with me, whether they had ever seen the book, or heard of the poem whence the author denominated himself; they were all as ignorant as I. But I find it common with these small dealers in wit and learning, to give themselves a title from their first adventure, as don Quixote usually did from his last. This arises from that great importance which every man supposes himself to be of.
One Dennis, commonly called the critick, who had writ a threepenny pamphlet against the power of France, being in the country, and hearing of a French privateer hovering about the coast, although he were twenty miles from the sea, fled to town, and told his friends, they need not wonder at his haste; for the king of France, having got intelligence where he was, had sent a privateer on purpose to catch him.
​Dr. Gee, prebendary of Westminster, who had writ a small paper against popery, being obliged to travel for his health, affected to disguise his person, and change his name, as he passed through Portugal, Spain, and Italy; telling all the English he met, that he was afraid of being murdered, or put into the inquisition. He was acting the same farce at Paris, till Mr. Prior (who was then secretary to the embassy) quite disconcerted the doctor, by maliciously discovering the secret; and offering to engage body for body, that not a creature would hurt him, or had ever heard of him or his pamphlet.
A chambermaid to a lady of my acquaintance, thirty miles from London, had the very same turn of thought, when talking with one of her fellow servants, she said; "I hear it is all over London already that I am going to leave my lady:" and so had a footman, who being newly married, desired his comrade to tell him freely what the town said of it.
When somebody was telling a certain great minister that people were discontented; "Poh, said he, half a dozen fools are prating in a coffeehouse, and presently think their own noise about their ears is made by the world."
The death of a private man is generally of so little importance to the world, that it cannot be a thing of great importance in itself; and yet I do not observe from the practice of mankind, that either philosophy or nature have sufficiently armed us against the fears which attend it. Neither do I find any thing able to reconcile us to it, but extreme pain, shame, or despair; for poverty, imprisonment, ill fortune, grief, sickness, and old age, do generally fail.
Whence comes the custom of bidding a woman ​look upon her apron strings to find an excuse? Was it not from the apron of fig leaves worn by Eve, when she covered herself, and was the first of her sex who made a bad excuse for eating the forbidden fruit?
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
Do not we see how easily we pardon our own actions and passions, and the very infirmities of our bodies; why should it be wonderful to find us pardon our own dullness?
Dignity and station, or great riches, are in some sort necessary to old men, in order to keep the young at a distance, who are otherwise apt to insult them upon the score of their age.
There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage, as vanity; nor any, which, by ill management, makes so contemptible a figure.
Observation is an old man's memory.
Politicks are nothing but corruptions, and are consequendy of no use to a good king or a good ministry; for which reason all courts are so full of politicks.
Eloquence smooth and cutting, is like a razor whetted with oil.
Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he, who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot, can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.
Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of publick business, because they are apt to ​go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. This I once said to my lord Bolingbroke, and desired he would observe, that the clerks in his office used a sort of ivory knife with a blunt edge to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only requiring a steady hand, whereas if they should make use of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the crease and disfigure the paper.
"He who does not provide for his own house," St. Paul says, "is worse than an infidel." And I think, he who provides only for his own house, is just equal with an infidel.
Jealousy, like fire, may shrivel up horns, but it makes them stink.
A footman's hat should fly off to every body; and therefore Mercury, who was Jupiter's footman, had wings fastened to his cap.
When a man pretends love, but courts for money, he is like a juggler, who conjures away your shilling, and conveys something very indecent under the hat.
All panegyricks are mingled with an infusion of poppy.
I have known men happy enough at ridicule, who upon grave subjects were perfectly stupid; of which Dr. Echard of Cambridge, who writ "The Contempt of the Clergy," was a great instance.
One top of Parnassus was sacred to Bacchus, the other to Apollo.
Matrimony has many children; Repentance, Discord, Poverty, Jealousy, Sickness, Spleen, Loathing, &c.
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
The two maxims of any great man at court, are, ​always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.
I asked a poor man how he did? He said, he was like a washball, always in decay.
Hippocrates, Aph. 32. Sect. 6. observes, that stuttering people are always subject to a looseness. I wish physicians had power to remove the profusion of words in many people to the inferiour parts.
A man dreamed he was a cuckold; a friend told him it was a bad sign, because when a dream is true, Virgil says it passes through the horned gate.
Love is a flame, and therefore we say, beauty is attractive; because physicians observe that fire is a great drawer.
Civis, the most honourable name among the Romans; a citizen, a word of contempt among us.
A lady who had gallantries and several children, told her husband he was like the austere man, who reaped where he did not sow.
We read that an ass's head was sold for eighty pieces of silver; they have been lately sold ten thousand times dearer, and yet they were never more plentiful.
I must complain the cards are ill shuffled, till I have a good hand.
Very few men do properly live at present, but are providing to live another time.
When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.
Whoever live at a different end of the town from me, I look upon as persons out of the world, and only myself and the scene about me to be in it.
When I was young, I thought all the world, as well as myself, was wholly taken up in discoursing upon the last new play.
​My lord Cromarty, after fourscore, went to his country house in Scotland, with a resolution to stay six years there and live thriftily, in order to save up money, that he might spend in London.
It is said of the horses in the vision, that their power was in their mouths and in their tails. What is said of horses in the vision, in reality may be said of women.
Elephants are always drawn smaller than the life, but a flea always larger.
When old folks tell us of many passages in their youth between them and their company, we are apt to think how much happier those times were than the present.
Why does the elder sister dance barefoot, when the younger is married before her? is it not that she may appear shorter, and consequently be thought younger than the bride?
No man will take counsel, but every man will take money: therefore money is better than counsel.
I never yet knew a wag (as the term is) who was not a dunce.
A person reading to me a dull poem of his own making, I prevailed on him to scratch out six lines together, in turning over the leaf, the ink being wet, it marked as many lines on the other side; whereof the poet complaining, I bid him be easy, for it would be better if those were out too.
At Windsor I was observing to my lord Bolingbroke, that the tower where the maids of honour lodged (who at that time were not very handsome) was much frequented with crows. My lord said, it was because they smelt carrion.