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.
He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.
Nobody in the developing world is going to take, as an answer to their aspirations, the developed world's reply: 'Sorry, you can't; we've already used it all up.' To earn the right to look the developing world in the eye and start this conversation, we need a reassessment of how we live and what we want.
You can't hear a word and just hear it as raw sound; it always evokes an associated meaning and emotion in the brain.
The only things standing between you and the compassionate, wise, and creative person you want to be are matters of choice. Your choice. No one can occupy your generosity except you.
For what Harley Street specialist has time to understand the body, let alone the mind or both in combination, when he is a slave to thirteen thousand a year?
The lapse of ages changes all things - time - language - the earth - the bounds of the sea - the stars of the sky, and everything 'about, around, and underneath' man, except man himself, who has always been and always will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment. All the discoveries which have yet been made have multiplied little but existence.
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