How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on humanity's tendency to ignore warnings while expecting to heed advice.
Jonathan Swift's quote underscores the irony in human behavior, highlighting a paradox where individuals often disregard warnings that indicate potential dangers or negative outcomes, yet still seek out and expect to receive guidance and advice. This suggests a distrust or disbelief in the significance of advice when one is not willing to acknowledge the consequences of their actions as indicated by warnings.
In practice
In a speech about climate change, one might use this quote to emphasize the necessity of listening to scientists' warnings.
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.
When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.
We proved that the aggressors do not necessarily emerge as the victors, but we learned that the victors do not necessarily win peace.
Virtuous people often revenge themselves for the constraints to which they submit by the boredom which they inspire.
Defense is superior to opulence.
My objection to the death penalty is based on the idea that this is a democracy, and in a democracy the government is me, and if the government kills somebody then I'm killing somebody.
Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men's language. Of course women learn it. We're not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man's world, so it talks a man's language.
God doesn't seek for golden vessels, and does not ask for silver ones, but He must have clean ones.
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