1720s · Skopia

Showing 31 quotes from the 1720s

The body of B. Franklin, Printer; Like the cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its lettering and gilding, Lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ’d, appear once more, In a new & more perfect edition, Corrected and amended By the Author.

Benjamin Franklin

1728

★ 7.0

Satire · Travel writing

Men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent as when they are at stool.

Jonathan Swift

Gulliver's Travels · 1726

★ 5.5

Satire · Travel writing

He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.

Jonathan Swift

Gulliver's Travels · 1726

★ 5.4

Satire · Travel writing

I said there was a society of men among us bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose that white is black and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves.

Jonathan Swift

Gulliver's Travels · 1726

★ 4.5

Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of a style.

Jonathan Swift

1720

★ 3.8

Essay · Satire

Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old.

Jonathan Swift

1727

★ 3.8

Novel

Vice came in always at the door of necessity, not at the door of inclination.

Daniel Defoe

Moll Flanders · 1722

★ 3.7

Satire · Travel writing

They will never allow that a child is under any obligation to his father for begetting him, or his mother for bringing him into the world - which, considering the miseries of human life, was neither a benefit in itself nor intended so by his parents, whose thoughts in their love encounters were otherwise employed.

Jonathan Swift

Gulliver's Travels · 1726

★ 3.7

Satire · Travel writing

Whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.

Jonathan Swift

Gulliver's Travels · 1726

★ 3.7

Letter

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

Alexander Pope

1727

★ 3.7

See, Winter comes to rule the varied year, Sullen and sad.

James Thomson

The Seasons: Winter · 1726

★ 3.6

Essay

He who tells a lie, is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.

Alexander Pope

1727

★ 3.6

Treatise · Philosophical literature

That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.

Francis Hutcheson

An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue · 1725

★ 3.5

Poem

Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot.

James Thomson

1728

★ 3.5

Poem · Political literature

What's not destroyed by Time's devouring hand? Where's Troy, and where's the May-pole in the Strand?

James Bramston

1729

★ 3.5

Letter

I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is towards individuals...I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.

Jonathan Swift

1725

★ 2.8

Novel · Picaresque

The pleasure of talking is the inextinguishable passion of woman.

Alain Rene Lesage

1724

★ 2.7

Novel · Epistolary novel

If triangles were to make to themselves gods, they would give them three sides.

Montesquieu

Persian Letters · 1721

★ 2.1

Travel writing · Satire

I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.

Jonathan Swift

Gulliver's Travels · 1726

★ 2.0

Poem

A woman's friendship ever ends in love.

John Gay

1720

★ 1.9

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