Nothing is so great an instance of ill manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; if you flatter only one or two, you affront the rest.
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Citations by Jonathan Swift
If vice cannot wholly be eradicated, it ought to be confined to particular objects.
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What can be a greater honour than to be chosen one of the stewards and dispensers of God's bounty to mankind? What can give a generous spirit more complacency than to consider that great numbers owe to him, under God, their subsistence, and the good conduct of their lives?
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Horace advises the Romans to seek a seat in some remote part, by way of a cure for the corruption of manners.
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One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish we had rather left unsaid: nor can there anything be well more contrary to the ends for which people meet together, than to part unsatisfied with each other or themselves.
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in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
No man of honour, as that word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honour obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavour to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.
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Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king or a good ministry; for which reason Courts are so overrun with politics.
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When our betters tell us they are our humble servants, but understand us to be their slaves.
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These orators inflame the people, whose anger is really but a short fit of madness.
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The making religion necessary to interest might increase hypocrisy; but if one in twenty should be brought to true piety, and nineteen be only hypocrites, the advantage would still be great.
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