Aging & Wisdom Quote by Jonathan Swift

Swift is doing what he does best: flattering human nature only long enough to expose its wiring. The sentence looks like a tidy moral taxonomy, but it’s really a social X-ray. “Interest is the spur of the people” reduces mass behavior to self-benefit - not evil, just predictable. The verb “spur” matters: people don’t stroll toward virtue; they’re prodded by incentives. Then he pivots to “glory,” the higher-octane drug that moves “great souls.” Swift’s compliment lands with a barb: even the noble aren’t free from appetite. They’ve simply refined it into something more theatrical, more public, harder to admit.

The second line sharpens into generational critique. “Invention is the talent of youth” sounds celebratory until you hear the limitation: youth makes, but doesn’t necessarily know. “Judgment of age” grants authority to the old while hinting at its trade-off - judgment often arrives after the window for daring has closed. It’s a neat, slightly cruel division of labor: young people supply novelty; older people supply brakes.

Context matters: Swift wrote amid the churn of party politics, imperial commerce, and the early modern public sphere, when “interest” was becoming not just a private motive but an organizing principle of society. His Anglican, Tory skepticism about financial modernity and Whig optimism leaks through. The line isn’t counseling harmony between motives; it’s warning that every age and class will claim loftier reasons, but the engine is always desire - dressed up as prudence, patriotism, or “glory,” depending on who’s speaking.