Jonathan Swift — "The greatest happiness of the greatest number."
The greatest happiness of the greatest number.
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More from Jonathan Swift
"And it is to be hoped that no gentleman will be so uncivil as to refuse to dine upon a child who has been so well fattened."
"There are few things more to be lamented than that a man who has got an estate, makes not a better use of it for the good of his family, and to the advantage of the public."
"What they do in the north, they do not in the south."
"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, r…"
"Dogs have at least the advantage over men, that they discover their friends, and bark at their enemies."
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.