How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.
Jonathan SwiftRead
No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.
Interpretation
Everyone can learn and grow from their experiences regardless of their expertise.
This quote emphasizes that no matter how knowledgeable or skilled a person becomes, there is always room for growth and learning through the experiences that come with aging. It suggests that the journey of life is a continuous process of gaining wisdom and understanding as we encounter new situations and information.
In practice
During a motivational speech about personal development.
How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.
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.
If you send up a weather vane or put your thumb up in the air every time you want to do something different, to find out what people are going to think about it, you're going to limit yourself. That's a very strange way to live.
If you donβt want your life to be 'messed up', donβt fool around with those who have messed up theirs.
A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.
Mrs. Cadbury: Tell me what you know about yourself. Anne Shirley: Well, it really isn't worth telling, Mrs. Cadbury... but if you let me tell you what I IMAGINE about myself you'd find it a lot more interesting.
A Warrior also knows that the fool who gives advice about someone else's garden is not tending his own plants.
The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself.
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