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About this quote

What does it mean?
Youth tends to focus on invention while age focuses on judgment.
In plain terms
Young people create new things, while older people decide if they are good.
What can you take from it?
Creativity peaks early, judgment comes later.

Where it applies

  • career planning
  • team composition
  • education

Putting it to work

  • value youth for ideas
  • value age for review

Questions to consider

  • Do you lean more toward invention or judgment?
  • How does age shape your creativity?

Another view

It generalizes abilities based on age rather than individual capacity.

More from Jonathan Swift

  1. Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.

    Permalink to quote #53
  2. I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

    Permalink to quote #55
  3. Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.

    Permalink to quote #52

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