Jonathan Swift — "The commonest things are the most useful; which shows the wisdom of God, who has…"
The commonest things are the most useful; which shows the wisdom of God, who has made them common.
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More from Jonathan Swift
"If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth, and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would app…"
"I could wish that some of our young divines would not think it beneath them to consult the most celebrated plays and romances, as well as the most approved poets and orators."
"We are told that the Houyhnhnms have no vices, but those which are the product of their reason; and that the Yahoos have no virtues, but those which are the product of their instinct."
"That was excellently observed', say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken."
"Promises and pie-crusts are made to be broken."
About Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Anglo-Irish satirist and Dean of Dublin's St Patrick's Cathedral whose Gulliver's Travels (1726) and A Modest Proposal (1729) are the canonical English-language satires. Closely associated with Alexander Pope (Scriblerus Club poet and collaborator) and John Gay (Beggar's Opera author and satirical contemporary). For an intellectual contrast, see Daniel Defoe, English Whig journalist and Robinson Crusoe author (1660-1731) — Defoe's Crusoe (1719) celebrates Enlightenment self-reliance and the colonial-mercantile project; Swift's Gulliver (1726) systematically dismantles every form of human pretension Defoe celebrated. The cleanest Augustan Whig-vs-Tory literary pairing — optimistic-empirical vs misanthropic-satirical.