Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was an Irish satirist, cleric, poet, and political writer whose prose remains among the sharpest in English. His major works include Gulliver's Travels, A Tale of a Tub, The Battle of the Books, A Modest Proposal, and the Drapier's Letters. Swift matters because he used satire not merely to mock folly, but to expose cruelty, vanity, corruption, and the collapse of reason under appetite and power. As Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, he became a fierce voice in Irish political controversy while retaining a dark, unsparing view of human nature. Gulliver's Travels remains both a children's classic in adaptation and a savage adult critique of empire, science, politics, and pride. Swift's quotes endure because they combine comic force with moral disgust and exact verbal control.

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