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.

One principal object of good-breeding is to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men, our superiors, our equals, and those below us.

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally 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.

What we call the Irish Brogue is no sooner discovered, than it makes the deliverer, in the last degree, ridiculous and despised; and, from such a mouth, an Englishman expects nothing but bulls, blunders, and follies.

All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.

If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels.