Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.”
- Source
- Gulliver's Travels
- Date
- 1726
Meaning of “Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they…”
Gulliver observes that judgments of size depend on a point of comparison, a lesson made vivid when his own body shifts from giant-scale in Lilliput to tiny scale in Brobdingnag.
Where does it come from?
Gulliver's Travels, Part II, Chapter I, Project Gutenberg #829. Lemuel Gulliver reflects that nothing is great or little except by comparison after finding himself tiny among the inhabitants of Brobdingnag, reversing his earlier giant-scale experience in Lilliput. This is fictional first-person satire and perspective play, not a universal philosophical proof.
