The dreams of avarice, we all have them

 I often wish'd that I had clear,

For life, six hundred pounds a year.

 

-- Jonathan Swift 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Samuel Johnson, who quoted Jonathan Swift more than three thousand times in his dictionary, had himself to write for money most of his life, until he received a royal pension of £300 a year from King George III in 1762, the equivalent of about £53,400 today, or about $72,500.

 

In death, Johnson left his servant and friend Francis Barber an annuity of but £70 a year, from a fortune of just £750. This, however, turned out to be too generous an annual sum, seeing that only skilled tradesmen might make as much as £50 a year. A prudent man could have lived comfortably on less.

 

The money did run out in the hands of the spendthrift Barber. Not many years later he was forced to sell off Johnson memorabilia which he had inherited to pay debts he had incurred, and he died in poverty not seventeen years after Johnson had died.

 

This means that, for his part, Johnson himself had run through about £5,800 or so by the time he died in 1784. The servant had learned from his master. 

 

Swift, meanwhile, had died with a fortune of £12,000 in 1745. 

A certain diseased beggar named Lazarus was laid at the rich man's gate, but never once was he fed from his sumptuous table

 Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want.

 

-- Jonathan Swift

Stand by for a word from our fearless leader, preferably at a safe distance

Duchess of Cornwall, surprised by Biden air biscuit 2021

 As when we a gun discharge,

Although the bore be ne'er so large,

Before the flame from muzzle burst,

Just at the breech it flashes first;

So from my lord his passion broke,

He farted first and then he spoke.

-- Jonathan Swift

Swift contra phonics

 Another cause, which hath maimed our language, is a foolish opinion that we ought to spell exactly as we speak.

-- Jonathan Swift

Swift against the Stoics

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

-- Jonathan Swift

How to print money on the gold standard

 How happy should we be if we had the privilege of employing the sheers, for want of a mint, upon foreign gold, by clipping it into half-crowns!

-- Jonathan Swift

The road to ruin

 The ruin of a state is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners, and contempt of religion, which is entirely our case at present.

-- Jonathan Swift

Of verses sterling

 Beware of Latin authors all!

Nor think your verses sterling,

Though with a golden pen you scrawl,

And scribble in a berlin.

-- Jonathan Swift

We've gone from Bungle in the Jungle to simply unrepeatable in less than fifty years

Wit, as the chief of virtue's friends,

Disdains to serve ignoble ends:

Observe what loads of stupid rhimes

Oppress us in corrupted times.

 

-- Jonathan Swift

No one is above the law

 

Should vice expect to 'scape rebuke,

Because its owner is a duke?

 

-- Jonathan Swift

When the Presbyterians were the fanaticks

 

The presbyterians, and other fanaticks that dangle after them, are well inclined to pull down the present establishment.

-- Jonathan Swift

I asked a poor man how he did

 I asked a poor man how he did; he said he was like a washball, always in decay.

-- Jonathan Swift

The food of fools

'Tis an old maxim in the schools,

That vanity's the food of fools;

Yet now and then your men of wit

Will condescend to take a bit.

-- Jonathan Swift

The kids are back in school, and so are the predators

In learning let a nymph delight,

The pedant gets a mistress by't.

-- Jonathan Swift

Divine antonyms

Gods of whatsoe'er degree,

Resume not what themselves have given,

Or any brother God in heav'n;

Which keeps the peace among the Gods,

Or they must always be at odds.

-- Jonathan Swift, Cadenus and Vanessa, 1713

Elizabeth Warren says Mike Pence is not a decent man for opposing faggotry

A patriot is a dangerous post,

When wanted by his country most,

Perversely comes in evil times,

Where virtues are imputed crimes.

-- Jonathan Swift

Laws are like cobwebs

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

-- Jonathan Swift

The blackest vices are the surest steps to favor

The fear of punishment in this life will preserve men from few vices, since some of the blackest often prove the surest steps to favour; such as ingratitude, hypocrisy, treachery and subornation.

-- Jonathan Swift

June used to be the traditional month for weddings

Yet thou hast greater cause to be

Asham'd of them, than they of thee;

Degenerate from their ancient brood,

Since first the court allow'd them food.

-- Jonathan Swift

The Sickness Unto Death was political before it was existential

To see whole bodies of men breaking a constitution; in short, to be encompassed with the greatest dangers from without, to be torn by many virulent factions within, then to be secure and senseless, are the most likely symptoms, in a state, of sickness unto death.

-- Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

αὕτη ἡ ἀσθένεια οὐκ ἔστιν πρὸς θάνατον -- John 11:4