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

The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting.

Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.

Ale is meat, drink and cloth; it will make a cat speak and a wise man dumb.

Ingratitude is amongst them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus; that whoever makes ill-returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of the mankind, from where he has received no obligations and therefore such man is not fit to live.

The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, has of all animals the nimblest tongue.

She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse.