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Who really said it

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another

Written by Jonathan Swift 1667–1745 · Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist & Dean of St Patrick’s, Dublin
Verified Free to reuse

A genuine Swift line from his aphorism collection “Thoughts on Various Subjects” (the “Various Thoughts, Moral and Diverting” dated 1 October 1706, first printed 1711). Two independent full-text editions preserve the exact wording, “We have just enough Religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another” Jonathan Swift, "Thoughts on Various Subjects" (written 1706; first published 1711)

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Provenance

The source

Work
Thoughts on Various Subjects
Form
Collection of prose aphorisms (“Various Thoughts, Moral and Diverting”)
Written
Dated 1 October 1706
First published
1711, in Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (London: John Morphew)

We have just enough Religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

One aphorism among dozens in the collection; the wording is stable across the 1711, 1727 and 1735 printings.

Thoughts on Various Subjects (full text, Quotidiana)

How we traced it

  • The Jonathan Swift Archive ↗ prints the line verbatim in “Various Thoughts, Moral and Diverting,” dated 1 October 1706, noting editions of 1711, 1727 and 1735.
  • The full text at Quotidiana ↗ carries the identical sentence within “Thoughts on Various Subjects.”
  • WIST Quotations ↗ sources the line to Swift’s “Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706).
Public domain

Swift’s “Thoughts on Various Subjects” was first published in 1711 (with the aphorism itself dated 1706), long before the 1931 U.S. copyright cutoff, so the work and this sentence are firmly in the public domain.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

The attribution to Swift is correct — but the wording is frequently clipped in quote databases.

Jonathan Swift (mis-worded) paraphrase

Many sites — e.g. BrainyQuote ↗ and Quotefancy ↗ — drop the word “just” and render it “We have enough religion to make us hate…,” which is not Swift’s printed text.

The author is genuinely Swift; the authentic wording keeps the word “just”: “We have just enough Religion to make us hate…,” as the Jonathan Swift Archive ↗ preserves it.

Context

Why it endures

Swift wrote the line as a compact aphorism among dozens in “Thoughts on Various Subjects,” a genre he excelled at: a single sentence that turns a whole argument on its hinge. Here the target is sectarian enmity — the observation that partial, formal religion can inflame hatred while stopping short of the charity that would dissolve it.

Coming from a satirist who was himself a senior Anglican cleric, the epigram has kept its bite for three centuries and is quoted in debates over religious conflict to this day.

Just enough to hate; not enough to love.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Love

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Jonathan Swift Archive — Thoughts on Various Subjectsjonathanswiftarchive.org.uk

Scholarly archive printing the aphorism verbatim across the 1711/1727/1735 editions
Thoughts on Various Subjects (full text)essays.quotidiana.org

Complete text of the collection containing the line
Swift quotations indexwist.info

Sourced quotation database citing the 1706 origin
Jonathan Swift — biographyen.wikipedia.org

Background on Swift, his aphorisms and major works

The true author

About Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

1667–1745 · Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist & cleric

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, poet, and Anglican clergyman who became Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Best known for Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and the savage essay A Modest Proposal (1729), he was also a prolific author of short aphorisms — terse moral observations of the kind that produced this line on religion and human enmity.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Jonathan Swift, “Thoughts on Various Subjects,” in Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (London: John Morphew, 1711); aphorism dated 1 October 1706.

MLA (9th ed.)

Swift, Jonathan. “Thoughts on Various Subjects.” Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, John Morphew, 1711.

APA (7th ed.)

Swift, J. (1711). Miscellanies in prose and verse. John Morphew.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/we-have-just-enough-religion-to-make-us-hate-but-not-enough

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