“ Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison. ”
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (1726). copy citation
| Author | Jonathan Swift |
|---|---|
| Source | Gulliver's Travels |
| Topic | weakness greatness comparison |
| Date | 1726 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/829/829-h/829-h.htm |
Context
“But this I conceived was to be the least of my misfortunes; for, as human creatures are observed to be more savage and cruel in proportion to their bulk, what could I expect but to be a morsel in the mouth of the first among these enormous barbarians that should happen to seize me? Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison. It might have pleased fortune, to have let the Lilliputians find some nation, where the people were as diminutive with respect to them, as they were to me. And who knows but that even this prodigious race of mortals might be equally overmatched in some distant part of the world, whereof we have yet no discovery.”
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Meaning and analysis
