An Infallible Medicine

Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.

-- Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745), Anglo-Irish writer and satirist, The Examiner No. XIV (9 November 1710)