Few lies carry the inventor's mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth, may spread a thousand without being known for the author: besides, as the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his believers: and it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falshood flies, and truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect: like a man, who has thought of a good repartee, when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who has found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.
Эссе для журнала «Исследователь», №14 (10 ноября 1710)
Джонатан Свифт: Актуальные цитаты (страница 3)
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„Все люди хотят жить долго, но никто не хочет быть старым.“
Вариант: Все люди хотят жить долго, но никто не хочет быть старым.
To be vain, is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in telling what honours have been done them, what great company they have kept, and the like, by which they plainly confess that these honours were more than their due, and such as their friends would not believe, if they had not been told: whereas a man truly proud, thinks the greatest honours below his merit, and consequently scorns to boast.
«Рассуждения о различных предметах, нравственные и занимательные»
If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!
«Рассуждения о различных предметах, нравственные и занимательные»
The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words; for whoever is a master of language, and has a mind full of ideas, will be apt in speaking to hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers 'have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in; and these are always ready at the mouth : so people come faster out of a church when it is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door.
«Рассуждения о различных предметах, нравственные и занимательные»
Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. <…> the clerks in [Lord Bolingbroke's] office used a sort of ivory knife with a blunt edge to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only requiring a steady hand; whereas if they should make use of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the crease and disfigure the paper.
«Продолжение рассуждений о различных предметах»
The reason why so few marriages are happy, is, because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.
«Рассуждения о различных предметах, нравственные и занимательные»