{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "slug": "gulliver-s-travels-into-several-remote-nations-of-the-world-pg829",
  "title": "Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World",
  "quotes": [
    {
      "text": "I often let my legs drop, and could feel no bottom; but when I\nwas almost gone, and able to struggle no longer, I found myself within my\ndepth"
    },
    {
      "text": "I thought it the most prudent method to lie still, and my design was to\ncontinue so till night, when, my left hand being already loose, I could easily\nfree myself"
    },
    {
      "text": "However, in\nmy opinion, it was extremely prudent, as well as generous: for, supposing these\npeople had endeavoured to kill me with their spears and arrows, while I was\nasleep, I should certainly have awaked with the first sense of smart, which\nmight so far have roused my rage and strength, as to have enabled me to break\nthe strings wherewith I was tied; after which, as they were not able to make\nresistance, so they could expect no mercy"
    },
    {
      "text": "These people are most excellent mathematicians, and arrived to a great\nperfection in mechanics, by the countenance and encouragement of the emperor,\nwho is a renowned patron of learning"
    },
    {
      "text": "I confess I was often tempted,\nwhile they were passing backwards and forwards on my body, to seize forty or\nfifty of the first that came in my reach, and dash them against the ground. But\nthe remembrance of what I had felt, which probably might not be the worst they\ncould do, and the promise of honour I made them—for so I interpreted my\nsubmissive behaviour—soon drove out these imaginations"
    },
    {
      "text": "But before this, they had daubed my face and both my\nhands with a sort of ointment, very pleasant to the smell, which, in a few\nminutes, removed all the smart of their arrows"
    },
    {
      "text": "I had been for some hours extremely pressed by the necessities of nature; which\nwas no wonder, it being almost two days since I had last disburdened myself. I\nwas under great difficulties between urgency and shame"
    },
    {
      "text": "He is\ntaller by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court; which alone is\nenough to strike an awe into the beholders."
    },
    {
      "text": "He ordered his cooks and butlers, who were already prepared, to give me\nvictuals and drink, which they pushed forward in a sort of vehicles upon\nwheels, till I could reach them."
    },
    {
      "text": "Sometimes they\ndetermined to starve me; or at least to shoot me in the face and hands with\npoisoned arrows, which would soon despatch me; but again they considered, that\nthe stench of so large a carcass might produce a plague in the metropolis, and\nprobably spread through the whole kingdom."
    },
    {
      "text": "He directed that those who had\nalready beheld me should return home, and not presume to come within fifty\nyards of my house, without license from the court; whereby the secretaries of\nstate got considerable fees."
    },
    {
      "text": "They apprehended my breaking loose;\nthat my diet would be very expensive, and might cause a famine."
    },
    {
      "text": "This diversion is only practised by those persons who are candidates for great\nemployments, and high favour at court."
    },
    {
      "text": "The emperor holds a stick in his hands, both\nends parallel to the horizon, while the candidates advancing, one by one,\nsometimes leap over the stick, sometimes creep under it, backward and forward,\nseveral times, according as the stick is advanced or depressed."
    },
    {
      "text": "Whoever performs his part with most\nagility, and holds out the longest in leaping and creeping, is rewarded with\nthe blue-coloured silk; the red is given to the next, and the green to the\nthird, which they all wear girt twice round about the middle; and you see few\ngreat persons about this court who are not adorned with one of these girdles."
    },
    {
      "text": "whose feet press down to the centre, and whose head strikes against the sun"
    },
    {
      "text": "pleasant as the spring,\ncomfortable as the summer, fruitful as autumn, dreadful as winter"
    },
    {
      "text": "the primitive way of\nbreaking eggs, before we eat them, was upon the larger end"
    },
    {
      "text": "his present\nmajesty’s grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and\nbreaking it according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his\nfingers"
    },
    {
      "text": "Whereupon the emperor his father published an edict, commanding all\nhis subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs"
    },
    {
      "text": "The\npeople so highly resented this law, that our histories tell us, there have been\nsix rebellions raised on that account"
    },
    {
      "text": "It is allowed on all hands, that the primitive way of\nbreaking eggs, before we eat them, was upon the larger end"
    },
    {
      "text": "the Big-endian exiles have found so much credit in the emperor of\nBlefuscu’s court, and so much private assistance and encouragement from\ntheir party here at home"
    },
    {
      "text": "a bloody war has been carried on between the two\nempires for six-and-thirty moons, with various success"
    },
    {
      "text": "we\nlabour under two mighty evils: a violent faction at home, and the danger of an\ninvasion, by a most potent enemy, from abroad"
    },
    {
      "text": "The animosities between these two parties run\nso high, that they will neither eat, nor drink, nor talk with each other"
    },
    {
      "text": "his imperial highness, the heir to\nthe crown, to have some tendency towards the high heels"
    },
    {
      "text": "our histories of six thousand moons\nmake no mention of any other regions than the two great empires of Lilliput and\nBlefuscu"
    },
    {
      "text": "which is the\nconvenient end, seems, in my humble opinion to be left to every man’s\nconscience, or at least in the power of the chief magistrate to determine"
    },
    {
      "text": "the books of the Big-endians have been long forbidden, and the\nwhole party rendered incapable by law of holding employments"
    },
    {
      "text": "I thought it would not become me, who was a foreigner, to\ninterfere with parties"
    },
    {
      "text": "I was ready, with the hazard of my life, to defend\nhis person and state against all invaders"
    },
    {
      "text": "Of so little\nweight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a\nrefusal to gratify their passions."
    },
    {
      "text": "Ingratitude is among them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some\nother countries: for they reason thus; that whoever makes ill returns to his\nbenefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of mankind, from whom he\nhas received no obligation, and therefore such a man is not fit to live."
    },
    {
      "text": "In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good morals\nthan to great abilities; for, since government is necessary to mankind, they\nbelieve, that the common size of human understanding is fitted to some station\nor other; and that Providence never intended to make the management of public\naffairs a mystery to be comprehended only by a few persons of sublime genius"
    },
    {
      "text": "but they suppose truth,\njustice, temperance, and the like, to be in every man’s power; the\npractice of which virtues, assisted by experience and a good intention, would\nqualify any man for the service of his country"
    },
    {
      "text": "The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine; but the\npractice still continues, in compliance to the vulgar."
    },
    {
      "text": "They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail\nto punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very\ncommon understanding, may preserve a man’s goods from thieves, but\nhonesty has no defence against superior cunning"
    },
    {
      "text": "the young ladies are as much ashamed of being cowards and\nfools as the men, and despise all personal ornaments, beyond decency and\ncleanliness"
    },
    {
      "text": "the fear you had for your eyes,\nwas the greatest difficulty in bringing over the enemy’s fleet, and it\nwould be sufficient for you to see by the eyes of the ministers, since the\ngreatest princes do no more"
    },
    {
      "text": "the more\nthese praises were enlarged and insisted on, the more inhuman was the\npunishment, and the sufferer more innocent"
    },
    {
      "text": "treason begins in the heart, before it\nappears in overt acts, so he accused you as a traitor on that account"
    },
    {
      "text": "Neither had I so soon learned the gratitude of courtiers, to\npersuade myself, that his majesty’s present severities acquitted me of\nall past obligations"
    },
    {
      "text": "I owe the preserving of my eyes, and\nconsequently my liberty, to my own great rashness and want of experience"
    },
    {
      "text": "I resolved never more to\nput any confidence in princes or ministers, where I could possibly avoid it"
    },
    {
      "text": "I was resolved to venture myself\non the ocean, rather than be an occasion of difference between two such mighty\nmonarchs"
    },
    {
      "text": "Having been condemned, by nature and fortune, to active and restless life"
    },
    {
      "text": "I found it fully cultivated; but that which first\nsurprised me was the length of the grass, which, in those grounds that seemed\nto be kept for hay, was about twenty feet high"
    },
    {
      "text": "Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that\nnothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison."
    },
    {
      "text": "It might have pleased\nfortune, to have let the Lilliputians find some nation, where the people were\nas diminutive with respect to them, as they were to me."
    },
    {
      "text": "And as I\nhave been always told, and found true by experience in my travels, that flying\nor discovering fear before a fierce animal, is a certain way to make it pursue\nor attack you, so I resolved, in this dangerous juncture, to show no manner of\nconcern."
    },
    {
      "text": "I must confess no object ever disgusted me\nso much as the sight of her monstrous breast, which I cannot tell what to\ncompare with, so as to give the curious reader an idea of its bulk, shape, and\ncolour."
    },
    {
      "text": "I hope the gentle reader will excuse me for dwelling on these and the like\nparticulars, which, however insignificant they may appear to groveling vulgar\nminds, yet will certainly help a philosopher to enlarge his thoughts and\nimagination, and apply them to the benefit of public as well as private life,"
    },
    {
      "text": "I\nconsidered myself to be a perfect stranger in the country, and that such a\nmisfortune could never be charged upon me as a reproach, if ever I should\nreturn to England, since the king of Great Britain himself, in my condition,\nmust have undergone the same distress."
    },
    {
      "text": "That the life I had since led\nwas laborious enough to kill an animal of ten times my strength."
    },
    {
      "text": "They all agreed that I could not be produced according to the\nregular laws of nature, because I was not framed with a capacity of preserving\nmy life, either by swiftness, or climbing of trees, or digging holes in the\nearth."
    },
    {
      "text": "they concluded unanimously, that I was only relplum scalcath,\nwhich is interpreted literally lusus naturæ; a determination exactly\nagreeable to the modern philosophy of Europe, whose professors, disdaining the\nold evasion of occult causes, whereby the followers of Aristotle endeavoured in\nvain to disguise their ignorance, have invented this wonderful solution of all\ndifficulties, to the unspeakable advancement of human knowledge."
    },
    {
      "text": "the queen (who had indeed\nbut a weak stomach) took up, at one mouthful, as much as a dozen English\nfarmers could eat at a meal, which to me was for some time a very nauseous\nsight."
    },
    {
      "text": "how contemptible a\nthing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as\nI"
    },
    {
      "text": "Neither, indeed, could I forbear smiling at myself, when the queen used to\nplace me upon her hand towards a looking-glass, by which both our persons\nappeared before me in full view together; and there could be nothing more\nridiculous than the comparison"
    },
    {
      "text": "if I had then beheld a company of English lords and ladies in their finery\nand birth-day clothes, acting their several parts in the most courtly manner of\nstrutting, and bowing, and prating, to say the truth, I should have been\nstrongly tempted to laugh as much at them as the king and his grandees did at\nme"
    },
    {
      "text": "as to myself, I thought it would not be for my reputation, that such\na story should go about"
    },
    {
      "text": "I had been long afraid of this resolution, and\ntherefore concealed from her some little unlucky adventures, that happened in\nthose times when I was left by myself"
    },
    {
      "text": "I conceive that my sense was more acute in\nproportion to my littleness, and that those illustrious persons were no more\ndisagreeable to their lovers, or to each other, than people of the same quality\nare with us in England."
    },
    {
      "text": "This made me reflect, how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavour to do\nhimself honour among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison\nwith him."
    },
    {
      "text": "And yet I have seen the moral of my own behaviour very frequent in\nEngland since my return; where a little contemptible varlet, without the least\ntitle to birth, person, wit, or common sense, shall presume to look with\nimportance, and put himself upon a foot with the greatest persons of the\nkingdom."
    },
    {
      "text": "I cannot forget, that an intimate friend of mine in Lilliput,\ntook the freedom in a warm day, when I had used a good deal of exercise, to\ncomplain of a strong smell about me, although I am as little faulty that way,\nas most of my sex: but I suppose his faculty of smelling was as nice with\nregard to me, as mine was to that of this people."
    },
    {
      "text": "ignorance, idleness, and vice, are\nthe proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator"
    },
    {
      "text": "laws are best\nexplained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie\nin perverting, confounding, and eluding them"
    },
    {
      "text": "a man may be allowed to keep poisons in\nhis closet, but not to vend them about for cordials"
    },
    {
      "text": "whoever could make two\nears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only\none grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service\nto his country, than the whole race of politicians put together"
    },
    {
      "text": "the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious\nrace of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the\nsurface of the earth"
    },
    {
      "text": "I would hide the frailties and deformities of my political\nmother, and place her virtues and beauties in the most advantageous light"
    },
    {
      "text": "great allowances should be given to a king, who lives wholly secluded from\nthe rest of the world, and must therefore be altogether unacquainted with the\nmanners and customs that most prevail in other nations"
    },
    {
      "text": "he would rather lose half\nhis kingdom, than be privy to such a secret"
    },
    {
      "text": "He confined\nthe knowledge of governing within very narrow bounds, to common sense and\nreason, to justice and lenity, to the speedy determination of civil and\ncriminal causes"
    },
    {
      "text": "I think I should rather have died than undergone the disgrace of\nleaving a posterity to be kept in cages, like tame canary-birds, and perhaps,\nin time, sold about the kingdom, to persons of quality, for curiosities."
    },
    {
      "text": "I wanted to be among people, with whom I could converse\nupon even terms, and walk about the streets and fields without being afraid of\nbeing trod to death like a frog or a young puppy."
    },
    {
      "text": "This I mention as an instance of the great power of habit and\nprejudice."
    },
    {
      "text": "I was\nindeed treated with much kindness: I was the favourite of a great king and\nqueen, and the delight of the whole court; but it was upon such a foot as ill\nbecame the dignity of humankind."
    },
    {
      "text": "I could never forget those domestic pledges I\nhad left behind me."
    },
    {
      "text": "the thirst I had of seeing the world,\nnotwithstanding my past misfortunes, continuing as violent as ever"
    },
    {
      "text": "I was sorry to find more mercy in a heathen, than in a\nbrother christian"
    },
    {
      "text": "the minds of these people are so taken up with\nintense speculations, that they neither can speak, nor attend to the discourses\nof others, without being roused by some external taction upon the organs of\nspeech and hearing"
    },
    {
      "text": "the whole compass of their thoughts and\nmind being shut up within the two forementioned sciences"
    },
    {
      "text": "inclining us to be most curious and conceited in matters where we have\nleast concern, and for which we are least adapted by study or nature"
    },
    {
      "text": "Their apprehensions arise from several changes they\ndread in the celestial bodies"
    },
    {
      "text": "They are so perpetually alarmed with the apprehensions of these, and the like\nimpending dangers, that they can neither sleep quietly in their beds, nor have\nany relish for the common pleasures and amusements of life."
    },
    {
      "text": "the\ncaprices of womankind are not limited by any climate or nation, and that they\nare much more uniform, than can be easily imagined."
    },
    {
      "text": "His majesty discovered not the least curiosity to\ninquire into the laws, government, history, religion, or manners of the\ncountries where I had been; but confined his questions to the state of\nmathematics"
    },
    {
      "text": "They were\nindeed excellent in two sciences for which I have great esteem, and wherein I\nam not unversed; but, at the same time, so abstracted and involved in\nspeculation, that I never met with such disagreeable companions."
    },
    {
      "text": "He was universally reckoned the most ignorant\nand stupid person among them. He had performed many eminent services for the\ncrown, had great natural and acquired parts, adorned with integrity and honour"
    },
    {
      "text": "If any town should engage in rebellion or mutiny, fall into violent factions,\nor refuse to pay the usual tribute, the king has two methods of reducing them\nto obedience."
    },
    {
      "text": "However, this is an extremity to which the prince is seldom driven,\nneither indeed is he willing to put it in execution; nor dare his ministers\nadvise him to an action, which, as it would render them odious to the people,\nso it would be a great damage to their own estates"
    },
    {
      "text": "The people were unanimous, and had laid in store of provisions, and a\ngreat river runs through the middle of the town."
    },
    {
      "text": "This incident broke entirely the king’s measures, and (to dwell no longer\non other circumstances) he was forced to give the town their own conditions."
    },
    {
      "text": "The only\ninconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection;\nand in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in\nruins, and the people without food or clothes."
    },
    {
      "text": "By all which, instead of being\ndiscouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their\nschemes, driven equally on by hope and despair:"
    },
    {
      "text": "that as for himself, being not\nof an enterprising spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in\nthe houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did, in every part of life,\nwithout innovation:"
    },
    {
      "text": "For it is plain, that every word we speak is, in some degree, a diminution of\nour lungs by corrosion, and, consequently, contributes to the shortening of our\nlives."
    },
    {
      "text": "However, many of the most learned and wise adhere to the new\nscheme of expressing themselves by things; which has only this inconvenience\nattending it, that if a man’s business be very great, and of various\nkinds, he must be obliged, in proportion, to carry a greater bundle of things\nupon his back,"
    },
    {
      "text": "The proposition, and demonstration,\nwere fairly written on a thin wafer, with ink composed of a cephalic tincture.\nThis, the student was to swallow upon a fasting stomach, and for three days\nfollowing, eat nothing but bread and water."
    },
    {
      "text": "that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational,\nwhich some philosophers have not maintained for truth."
    },
    {
      "text": "that new systems of nature were but new fashions,\nwhich would vary in every age; and even those, who pretend to demonstrate them\nfrom mathematical principles, would flourish but a short period of time, and be\nout of vogue when that was determined."
    },
    {
      "text": "that these commentators always kept in the\nmost distant quarters from their principals, in the lower world, through a\nconsciousness of shame and guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented\nthe meaning of those authors to posterity."
    },
    {
      "text": "that the greatest actions of his own life were\nnot equal, by many degrees, to the glory of taking it away."
    },
    {
      "text": "how the world had been misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe\nthe greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools;\nsincerity, to flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayers of their country; piety,\nto atheists; chastity, to sodomites; truth, to informers"
    },
    {
      "text": "how a whore can govern the back-stairs, the back-stairs a council, and the\ncouncil a senate"
    },
    {
      "text": "that the royal throne could not be\nsupported without corruption, because that positive, confident, restiff temper,\nwhich virtue infused into a man, was a perpetual clog to public\nbusiness"
    },
    {
      "text": "how all these pure\nnative virtues were prostituted for a piece of money by their grand-children"
    },
    {
      "text": "Happy nation, where every child hath at least a chance for\nbeing immortal! Happy people, who enjoy so many living examples of ancient\nvirtue, and have masters ready to instruct them in the wisdom of all former\nages!"
    },
    {
      "text": "just as a man diverts himself with the annual succession of pinks and tulips in\nhis garden, without regretting the loss of those which withered the preceding\nyear"
    },
    {
      "text": "the oldest had still hopes of living one day longer, and looked on death as the\ngreatest evil, from which nature always prompted him to retreat."
    },
    {
      "text": "That\nthe question therefore was not, whether a man would choose to be always in the\nprime of youth, attended with prosperity and health; but how he would pass a\nperpetual life under all the usual disadvantages which old age brings along\nwith it."
    },
    {
      "text": "Envy and impotent desires are their\nprevailing passions."
    },
    {
      "text": "They have no remembrance of anything but what they\nlearned and observed in their youth and middle-age, and even that is very\nimperfect; and for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend\non common tradition, than upon their best recollections."
    },
    {
      "text": "Otherwise, as avarice is the necessary consequence of old age,\nthose immortals would in time become proprietors of the whole nation, and\nengross the civil power, which, for want of abilities to manage, must end in\nthe ruin of the public."
    },
    {
      "text": "The language of this country being always upon the flux, the\nstruldbrugs of one age do not understand those of another; neither are\nthey able, after two hundred years, to hold any conversation (farther than by a\nfew general words) with their neighbours the mortals; and thus they lie under\nthe disadvantage of living like foreigners in their own country."
    },
    {
      "text": "I never had one hour’s sickness\nwhile I stayed in this island."
    },
    {
      "text": "I am confident that the frequent use of salt among us is an effect of\nluxury, and was first introduced only as a provocative to drink,"
    },
    {
      "text": "The behaviour of the\nyoung colt and foal appeared very modest, and that of the master and mistress\nextremely cheerful and complaisant to their guest."
    },
    {
      "text": "They were\nunder great perplexity about my shoes and stockings, which they felt very\noften, neighing to each other, and using various gestures, not unlike those of\na philosopher, when he would attempt to solve some new and difficult\nphenomenon."
    },
    {
      "text": "the use of speech was to make us understand one\nanother, and to receive information of facts; now, if any one said the thing\nwhich was not, these ends were defeated"
    },
    {
      "text": "reason in time will always prevail against brutal\nstrength"
    },
    {
      "text": "Power, government, war, law, punishment,\nand a thousand other things, had no terms wherein that language could express\nthem"
    },
    {
      "text": "He was sure no Houyhnhnm alive could make such\na vessel, nor would trust Yahoos to manage it"
    },
    {
      "text": "Sometimes the ambition of princes, who\nnever think they have land or people enough to govern"
    },
    {
      "text": "Difference in\nopinions has cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread,\nor bread be flesh"
    },
    {
      "text": "Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or\nof so long a continuance, as those occasioned by difference in opinion,\nespecially if it be in things indifferent"
    },
    {
      "text": "Sometimes one prince quarrels with another for fear the other should\nquarrel with him"
    },
    {
      "text": "It is a very justifiable cause of a\nwar, to invade a country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed\nby pestilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves"
    },
    {
      "text": "Alliance\nby blood, or marriage, is a frequent cause of war between princes; and the\nnearer the kindred is, the greater their disposition to quarrel"
    },
    {
      "text": "poor nations\nare hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at\nvariance"
    },
    {
      "text": "the trade of a soldier is held the most honourable\nof all others; because a soldier is a Yahoo hired to kill, in cold\nblood, as many of his own species, who have never offended him, as possibly he\ncan"
    },
    {
      "text": "there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in\nthe art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black,\nand black is white, according as they are paid"
    },
    {
      "text": "It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever has been done before,\nmay legally be done again"
    },
    {
      "text": "they studiously avoid entering into the merits of the\ncause; but are loud, violent, and tedious, in dwelling upon all circumstances\nwhich are not to the purpose"
    },
    {
      "text": "the rich man enjoyed the fruit of the poor\nman’s labour, and the latter were a thousand to one in proportion to the\nformer"
    },
    {
      "text": "we sent away the greatest part of our\nnecessary things to other countries, whence, in return, we brought the\nmaterials of diseases, folly, and vice, to spend among ourselves"
    },
    {
      "text": "Their fundamental is, that all diseases arise from repletion; whence\nthey conclude, that a great evacuation of the body is necessary"
    },
    {
      "text": "One great excellency in this tribe, is their skill at prognostics,\nwherein they seldom fail; their predictions in real diseases, when they rise to\nany degree of malignity, generally portending death, which is always in their\npower, when recovery is not"
    },
    {
      "text": "those he speaks worst of behind their\nbacks are in the surest way of preferment"
    },
    {
      "text": "The palace of a chief minister is a seminary to breed up others in his\nown trade"
    },
    {
      "text": "He is usually governed by a decayed wench, or favourite footman, who are\nthe tunnels through which all graces are conveyed, and may properly be called,\nin the last resort, the governors of the kingdom"
    },
    {
      "text": "that my\nbirth was of the lower sort, having been born of plain honest parents, who were\njust able to give me a tolerable education"
    },
    {
      "text": "that our young\nnoblemen are bred from their childhood in idleness and luxury"
    },
    {
      "text": "that, as soon as\nyears will permit, they consume their vigour, and contract odious diseases\namong lewd females"
    },
    {
      "text": "That the productions of such\nmarriages are generally scrofulous, rickety, or deformed children"
    },
    {
      "text": "a weak diseased body, a meagre\ncountenance, and sallow complexion, are the true marks of noble blood"
    },
    {
      "text": "Without the consent of this illustrious body, no law can be enacted,\nrepealed, or altered"
    },
    {
      "text": "the many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds, placed in opposite view to\nhuman corruptions, had so far opened my eyes and enlarged my understanding"
    },
    {
      "text": "I began to view the actions and passions of man in a very different light,\nand to think the honour of my own kind not worth managing"
    },
    {
      "text": "I had likewise learned, from his example, an\nutter detestation of all falsehood or disguise; and truth appeared so amiable\nto me, that I determined upon sacrificing every thing to it"
    },
    {
      "text": "that we disarmed ourselves of the few abilities\nshe had bestowed; had been very successful in multiplying our original wants"
    },
    {
      "text": "that, as to myself, it was manifest I had neither the strength\nnor agility of a common Yahoo"
    },
    {
      "text": "That our institutions of government and law were plainly owing to our\ngross defects in reason, and by consequence in virtue"
    },
    {
      "text": "the Yahoos were known to hate one another, more than\nthey did any different species of animals"
    },
    {
      "text": "the reason usually assigned was,\nthe odiousness of their own shapes, which all could see in the rest, but not in\nthemselves"
    },
    {
      "text": "He had therefore begun to think it not unwise in us to cover our\nbodies, and by that invention conceal many of our deformities from each other"
    },
    {
      "text": "those kept at home\nwere tied at a distance from each other"
    },
    {
      "text": "for want of enemies, engage in what I call a\ncivil war among themselves"
    },
    {
      "text": "That in some fields of his country there are certain shining stones of\nseveral colours, whereof the Yahoos are violently fond"
    },
    {
      "text": "they will dig with\ntheir claws for whole days to get them out; then carry them away, and hide them\nby heaps in their kennels"
    },
    {
      "text": "but still looking round with great caution, for fear\ntheir comrades should find out their treasure"
    },
    {
      "text": "which, when his Yahoo had found, he presently recovered his\nspirits and good humour"
    },
    {
      "text": "a third\nwould take the advantage, and carry it away from them both"
    },
    {
      "text": "there was nothing that\nrendered the Yahoos more odious, than their undistinguishing appetite to\ndevour every thing that came in their way"
    },
    {
      "text": "they were fonder of what they could get by rapine or\nstealth, at a greater distance, than much better food provided for them at\nhome"
    },
    {
      "text": "It would make them sometimes hug, and sometimes tear one\nanother"
    },
    {
      "text": "the cure prescribed is a mixture of their own dung and urine,\nforcibly put down the Yahoo’s throat"
    },
    {
      "text": "whose employment was to lick his master’s feet and\nposteriors, and drive the female Yahoos to his kennel"
    },
    {
      "text": "This favourite is\nhated by the whole herd, and therefore, to protect himself, keeps always near\nthe person of his leader"
    },
    {
      "text": "that a female Yahoo would often\nstand behind a bank or a bush, to gaze on the young males passing by, and then\nappear, and hide"
    },
    {
      "text": "Perhaps my master might refine a little in these speculations, which he had\ndrawn from what he observed himself, or had been told him by others"
    },
    {
      "text": "I\ncould not reflect without some amazement, and much sorrow, that the rudiments\nof lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal, should have place by instinct in\nwomankind"
    },
    {
      "text": "nature, it seems,\nhas not been so expert a school-mistress; and these politer pleasures are\nentirely the productions of art and reason on our side of the globe"
    },
    {
      "text": "the\nhatred I bore these brutes would never suffer me to be corrupted by them"
    },
    {
      "text": "They are prodigiously nimble from their infancy"
    },
    {
      "text": "They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit, and, by\nconsequence, insolent, abject, and cruel"
    },
    {
      "text": "It is observed, that the red haired\nof both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest"
    },
    {
      "text": "Nature has taught them to dig deep holes with their nails on\nthe side of a rising ground, wherein they lie by themselves"
    },
    {
      "text": "They swim from their infancy like frogs, and are able to continue long under\nwater, where they often take fish"
    },
    {
      "text": "I was never in my life so terribly\nfrightened"
    },
    {
      "text": "I have reason to believe they\nhad some imagination that I was of their own species"
    },
    {
      "text": "as a tame jackdaw with cap and stockings is\nalways persecuted by the wild ones, when he happens to be got among them"
    },
    {
      "text": "Yet I am of opinion this defect arises chiefly from a perverse,\nrestive disposition; for they are cunning, malicious, treacherous, and\nrevengeful"
    },
    {
      "text": "They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit, and, by\nconsequence, insolent, abject, and cruel"
    },
    {
      "text": "Neither is reason among them a point problematical, as\nwith us, where men can argue with plausibility on both sides of the question,\nbut strikes you with immediate conviction; as it must needs do, where it is not\nmingled, obscured, or discoloured, by passion and interest."
    },
    {
      "text": "So that controversies, wranglings, disputes, and\npositiveness, in false or dubious propositions, are evils unknown among the\nHouyhnhnms."
    },
    {
      "text": "Friendship and benevolence are the two principal virtues among the\nHouyhnhnms; and these not confined to particular objects, but universal\nto the whole race;"
    },
    {
      "text": "They preserve decency and civility in the highest degrees, but are\naltogether ignorant of ceremony."
    },
    {
      "text": "They will have it that nature\nteaches them to love the whole species, and it is reason only that makes a\ndistinction of persons, where there is a superior degree of virtue."
    },
    {
      "text": "the violation of marriage,\nor any other unchastity, was never heard of; and the married pair pass their\nlives with the same friendship and mutual benevolence, that they bear to all\nothers of the same species who come in their way, without jealousy, fondness,\nquarrelling, or discontent."
    },
    {
      "text": "Temperance, industry, exercise, and cleanliness, are the lessons equally\nenjoined to the young ones of both sexes:"
    },
    {
      "text": "I had no\noccasion of bribing, flattering, or pimping, to procure the favour of any great\nman, or of his minion; I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression:"
    },
    {
      "text": "I had the favour of being admitted to several Houyhnhnms, who came to\nvisit or dine with my master; where his honour graciously suffered me to wait\nin the room, and listen to their discourse."
    },
    {
      "text": "Their subjects are generally on friendship and benevolence, on\norder and economy; sometimes upon the visible operations of nature, or ancient\ntraditions; upon the bounds and limits of virtue; upon the unerring rules of\nreason, or upon some determinations to be taken at the next great assembly:"
    },
    {
      "text": "They have\na notion, that when people are met together, a short silence does much improve\nconversation: this I found to be true; for during those little intermissions of\ntalk, new ideas would arise in their minds, which very much enlivened the\ndiscourse."
    },
    {
      "text": "I admired the\nstrength, comeliness, and speed of the inhabitants; and such a constellation of\nvirtues, in such amiable persons, produced in me the highest veneration."
    },
    {
      "text": "I considered them, as they really were, Yahoos in shape and\ndisposition, perhaps a little more civilized, and qualified with the gift of\nspeech; but making no other use of reason, than to improve and multiply those\nvices whereof their brethren in this country had only the share that nature\nallotted them."
    },
    {
      "text": "I turned away my face in horror and detestation of myself,\nand could better endure the sight of a common Yahoo than of my own\nperson."
    },
    {
      "text": "because I had some\nrudiments of reason, added to the natural pravity of those animals, it was to\nbe feared I might be able to seduce them into the woody and mountainous parts\nof the country, and bring them in troops by night to destroy the\nHouyhnhnms’ cattle, as being naturally of the ravenous kind, and\naverse from labour."
    },
    {
      "text": "I thought it\nmight consist with reason to have been less rigorous; that I could not swim a\nleague, and probably the nearest land to theirs might be distant above a\nhundred: that many materials, necessary for making a small vessel to carry me\noff, were wholly wanting in this country;"
    },
    {
      "text": "that the certain prospect of an unnatural death was the least of my evils; for,\nsupposing I should escape with life by some strange adventure, how could I\nthink with temper of passing my days among Yahoos, and relapsing into my\nold corruptions, for want of examples to lead and keep me within the paths of\nvirtue?"
    },
    {
      "text": "My design was, if possible, to discover some small island uninhabited, yet\nsufficient, by my labour, to furnish me with the necessaries of life, which I\nwould have thought a greater happiness, than to be first minister in the\npolitest court of Europe; so horrible was the idea I conceived of returning to\nlive in the society, and under the government of Yahoos."
    },
    {
      "text": "I had quite forgot the faculty of lying, so peculiar to\nYahoos, in all countries where they preside, and, consequently, their\ndisposition of suspecting truth in others of their own species."
    },
    {
      "text": "I would suffer the greatest hardships,\nrather than return to live among Yahoos."
    },
    {
      "text": "my principal design was to inform, and\nnot to amuse thee."
    },
    {
      "text": "a traveller’s chief aim should be to make men\nwiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad, as well as good,\nexample of what they deliver concerning foreign places."
    },
    {
      "text": "I would strictly adhere to\ntruth; neither indeed can I be ever under the least temptation to vary from it,\nwhile I retain in my mind the lectures and example of my noble master and the\nother illustrious Houyhnhnms of whom I had so long the honour to be an\nhumble hearer."
    },
    {
      "text": "I write for the noblest end, to inform and instruct mankind; over whom I may,\nwithout breach of modesty, pretend to some superiority, from the advantages I\nreceived by conversing so long among the most accomplished Houyhnhnms."
    },
    {
      "text": "I shall say nothing of those remote nations\nwhere Yahoos preside; among which the least corrupted are the\nBrobdingnagians; whose wise maxims in morality and government it would\nbe our happiness to observe."
    },
    {
      "text": "I\nwrite without any view to profit or praise."
    },
    {
      "text": "Their\nprudence, unanimity, unacquaintedness with fear, and their love of their\ncountry, would amply supply all defects in the military art."
    },
    {
      "text": "But, instead\nof proposals for conquering that magnanimous nation, I rather wish they were in\na capacity, or disposition, to send a sufficient number of their inhabitants\nfor civilizing Europe, by teaching us the first principles of honour, justice,\ntruth, temperance, public spirit, fortitude, chastity, friendship, benevolence,\nand fidelity."
    },
    {
      "text": "But the Houyhnhnms, who live under the government of reason, are no\nmore proud of the good qualities they possess, than I should be for not wanting\na leg or an arm; which no man in his wits would boast of, although he must be\nmiserable without them."
    },
    {
      "text": "I dwell the longer upon this subject from the desire I\nhave to make the society of an English Yahoo by any means not\ninsupportable; and therefore I here entreat those who have any tincture of this\nabsurd vice, that they will not presume to come in my sight."
    },
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}