# Quote — Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

> It is a maxim among lawyers that whatever hath been done before may be done again, and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions, and the judges never fail of directing them accordingly.

- Author: [Jonathan Swift](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift.md)
- Book: [Gulliver's Travels](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift/gullivers-travels.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift#Gulliver's_Travels_(1726)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift/gullivers-travels/it-is-a-maxim

## More from this book

> He is taller by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift/gullivers-travels/he-is-taller.md)

> He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift/gullivers-travels/he-had-been.md)

> And he gave it for his opinion, that whosoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-swift/gullivers-travels/and-he-gave.md)