Jonathan Swift was an Irish author, clergyman and satirist. Born November 30, 1667, Swift is best known for writing ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, and being dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Ireland’s capital, Dubin.
Swift did not have the easiest of upbringings. His father, also named Jonathan Swift, died two months before he arrived and without a steady income, his mother struggled to provide for her newborn. Swift also struggled with health problems as a child and was later discovered that he suffered from Meniere’s Disease, which is a condition of the inner ear that leaves the afflicted nauseous and hard of hearing.
Under the care of his uncle, Godwin Swift, Swift attended Trinity College and afterwards worked as a statesman’s assistant. It was after this that Swift became dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin.
Swift first started writing short essays and then a manuscript for a later book. In 1704, Swift anonymously released ‘A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books’ which was harshly criticized by the Church of England.
In 1742, Jonathan Swift suffered from a stroke and lost the ability to speak and on October 19, 1745 he sadly passed away and was laid to rest next to Esther Johson inside Dublin’s St. Swift was 77 years old.
We remember and celebrate Jonathan Swift with some of his most famous quotes –
“”Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others”
“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through”
“When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him”
“May you live all the days of your life”
“A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart”
“The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman”
“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster”
“Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old”
“Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken”
“For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery”
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own”
“No wise man ever wished to be younger”
“We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another”
“Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want”
