Jonathan Swift

“Argument is the worst sort of conversation.”

“Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.”

“For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.”

“I must complain the cards are ill shuffled till I have a good hand.”

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

“That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.”

“The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.”

“Vision:  the art of seeing things invisible.”

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

“Whoever could make two ears of corn... grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind... than the whole race of politicians put together.”