# Quote — Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub

> Bread is the staff of life.

- Author: [Jonathan Swift](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift.md)
- Book: [A Tale of a Tub](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift/a-tale-of-a-tub.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift#A_Tale_of_a_Tub_(1704)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift/a-tale-of-a-tub/bread-is-the

## More from this book

> Seamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift/a-tale-of-a-tub/seamen-have-a-custom.md)

> I have one word to say upon the subject of profound writers, who are grown very numerous of late; and I know very well the judicious world is resolved to list me in that number. I conceive therefore, as to the business of being profound, that it is with writers as with wells - a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there: and often when there is nothing in the world at the bottom besides dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and a-half under-ground, it shall pass, however, for wondrous deep upon no wiser reason than because it is wondrous dark

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift/a-tale-of-a-tub/i-have-one.md)

> It is a maxim, that those to whom everybody allows the second place have an undoubted title to the first.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift/a-tale-of-a-tub/it-is-a-maxim.md)