How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.
Jonathan SwiftRead
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Satire reveals the flaws of others while blinding individuals to their own shortcomings.
In this quote, Jonathan Swift uses the metaphor of a glass to illustrate how satire holds up a mirror to society, allowing people to critique others but often leading them to overlook their own faults. Swift suggests that satire serves as a tool for reflection, yet it ironically causes individuals to focus on the failings of those around them while remaining unaware of their own flaws, highlighting the limits of self-awareness in human nature.
Themes
SatireReflectionSelf-AwarenessHumorCritique
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about political satire, this quote can be used to emphasize how critics often highlight faults without acknowledging their own.
More from Jonathan Swift
All quotes βWhat 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.
Jonathan SwiftRead
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.
Jonathan SwiftRead
The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
Jonathan SwiftRead
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.
Jonathan SwiftRead
I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
Jonathan SwiftRead
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