How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.
Bachelor's fare: bread and cheese, and kisses.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the simplicity and joy in love, suggesting that affection can suffice over material wealth.
Jonathan Swift's quote illustrates the idea that love and companionship are more valuable than material possessions. The imagery of a simple meal of bread and cheese, along with affectionate kisses, suggests that the essence of a relationship can be found in modest pleasures and shared moments rather than extravagant lifestyles. It emphasizes that true happiness in love doesn't rely on opulence, but rather on the emotional connections we share with others.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a romantic dinner, one might share this quote to emphasize the importance of love over material wealth.
More from Jonathan Swift
All quotes →What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.
This is every cook's opinion - _x000D_ no savory dish without an onion, _x000D_ but lest your kissing should be spoiled _x000D_ your onions must be fully boiled.
The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.
I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
Similar quotes
I get no kick from champagne. Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all. So, tell me why should it be true, that I get a kick out of you?
SHE is neither pink nor pale, And she never will be all mine; She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine. She has more hair than she needs; In the sun ’tis a woe to me! And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea. She loves me all that she can, And her ways to my ways resign; But she was not made for any man, And she never will be all mine.
You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Love cannot be had for the asking; it comes only as a gift from the heart of another
You can’t replace people you love with other people…But you can trust that you’re not going to run out of people to love.
I know a man He came from my home town He wore his passion for his woman Like a thorny crown He said "Dolores I live in fear My love for you's so overpowering I'm afraid that I will disappear