Gulliver's Travels Quotes:

It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.

- Jonathan Swift

source: Gulliver's Travels "A Voyage to Lilliput" ch. 4 (1726)

topic: Eggs, Gulliver's Travels, Break, Breaking Eggs

And he gave it for his opinion, "that 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

topic: Country, Vegetables, Two, Gulliver, Blades Of Grass

I cannot but conclude that 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

topic: Race, Earth, Littles, Misanthropy, Gulliver

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

- Jonathan Swift

source: 'The Battle of the Books' (1704) preface

topic: Sarcastic, Sarcasm, Glasses, Gulliver, Curmudgeon

My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons.

- Jonathan Swift

topic: Father, Book, Son, Gulliver's Travels

Undoubtedly, philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.

- Jonathan Swift

topic: Littles, Philosopher, Comparison, Gulliver's Travels

I am Plato's Republic. Mr. Simmons is Marcus. I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver's Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and-this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Mr. Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we all are, Montag. Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Lincoln, if you please. We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

- Ray Bradbury

topic: Plato, Book, Evil, Plato S, Gulliver

If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels.

- Jonathan Swift

topic: Science, Gulliver, World, Gulliver's Travels

Books have their destinies like men. And their fates, as made by generations of readers, are very different from the destinies foreseen for them by their authors. Gulliver's Travels, with a minimum of expurgation, has become a children's book; a new illustrated edition is produced every Christmas. That's what comes of saying profound things about humanity in terms of a fairy story.

- Aldous Huxley

topic: Children, Book, Fate, Gulliver, Gulliver's Travels

If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put Gulliver's Travels among them.

- George Orwell

source: George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.311, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

topic: Book, Gulliver, Lists, Gulliver's Travels

There's a whole slew of wonderful speculation of flying in a fanciful way. Gulliver is one of the central examples; Swift has the hum of Arabian Nights in his ear with Gulliver's Travels. The difference is in scale - Gulliver as a kind of Sinbad kind of figure, the way he is picked up and carried. Just to finish up with Scheherazade, I do think that The Arabian Nights could be considered as a great book on women's position in the world.

- Marina Warner

source: Source: therumpus.net

topic: Book, Night, Thinking, Gulliver, Great Book