It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
British author Jonathan Swift wrote a number of stories and treatises with themes that many believe offer great contrast. In Jonathan Swift’s beloved tale Gulliver’s Travels, the protagonist Lemuel Gulliver travels to a number of fantasy lands, and spends extended periods of time getting to know the members of the societies he visits. In a far less fairy tale like work entitled "A Modest Proposal," Swift presents his society with a solution to the thorny question of the staggering poverty and overpopulation among the lower classes of Ireland. His solution, in a nutshell, is to actually pay poverty-stricken Irish parents to raise their children for the culinary table, much in the same way that farmers raise sheep or cattle for the express purpose of having them butchered for meat. Of course, an idea this profound is studied quite closely in classrooms around the world today.
A Modest Proposol: For Preventing The Children of The Poor People of Ireland From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public. by Jonathan Swift (1729)
