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About this quote

What does it mean?
The second half of a wise person's life is spent fixing bad habits formed in the first half.
In plain terms
Wise people spend their later years fixing mistakes from their youth.
What can you take from it?
Life is a process of correcting past errors.

Where it applies

  • self-reflection
  • life planning

Putting it to work

  • personal development
  • self-correction

Questions to consider

  • Can we fix our past?
  • What does wisdom cost?

Another view

Not all past habits can be changed.

More from Jonathan Swift

  1. The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

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  2. Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because he that would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a multitude, will convince others the mor…

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  3. The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

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