Quotation added by staff

Why not add this quote to your bookmarks?

  ..."for an overgrown sloven; and who in the devil's name, I wonder, helps to make up the crowd half so much as yourself? Don't you consider that you take up more room with that carcass than any five here? Is not the place as free for us as for you? Bring your own guts to a reasonable compass, and then I'll engage we shall have room enough for us all."
There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof I hope there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.   and again, that whatever word or sentence is printed in a different character shall be judged to contain something extraordinary either of wit or sublime.
As for the liberty I have thought fit to take of praising myself, upon some occasions or none, I am sure it will need no excuse if a multitude of great examples be allowed sufficient authority; for it is here to be noted that praise was originally a pension paid by the world, but the moderns, finding the trouble and charge too great...   Swift, Jonathan

Excerpt from A Tale of a Tub · This quote is about understanding · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

• Biography
• 2 Fans
• This quote in blogs