Jonathan Swift — "Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is gre…"
Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.
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More from Jonathan Swift
"It is a miserable thing to be a man of sense in a country where the generality of the people are fools."
"I am not fond of giving advice, but when I do, I expect it to be taken."
"The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a torrent of words."
"The only difference between a wise man and a fool is that a wise man knows he is a fool, and a fool thinks he is wise."
"Thus Dædalus and Ovid too, That man's a blockhead have confessed, Powel and Stretch the hint pursue; Life is the farce, the world a jest."
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.