How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.
Jonathan SwiftRead
May you live all the days of your life.
Interpretation
This quote encourages fully experiencing and appreciating every moment of life.
Jonathan Swift's quote urges individuals to engage deeply with the present and to cherish every single day they are alive. It serves as a reminder that life is fleeting, and one should strive to make the most of their time, embracing both the joys and challenges that come with it.
In practice
During a graduation speech to inspire graduates to embrace their futures.
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.
Life does not acommodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn't do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition.
Remember always, he said, that nothing is as precious to us as the magnificent gift of life. Let the moon and the stars always remind you of this-that though we are tiny creatures in this universe, we are filled with life.
When you're 50 you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity - but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.
Life plays the same lovely and agonizing joke on all of us.
As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.
I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from?
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