Gulliver’s Travels Key Quotes and Analysis

1. I reflected what a mortification it must prove to me to appear as inconsiderable in this nation as one single Lilliputian would be among us. (Part 2 Ch 1)

–Gulliver

These are Gulliver’s words, uttered as he ruminates combining human and Lilliputian perspectives. He reflects on the fact that a Lilliputian in the human world would hardly be shown mercy or consideration. On the other hand in Brobdingnag, where he is a dwarf, he is treated with more respect than a Lilliputian could expect from humans.

2. I here take a final leave of all my courteous readers…to apply those excellent lessons of virtue which I learned among the Houyhnhnms; to instruct the Yahoos of my own family. (Part IV Ch 12)

–Gulliver

These are Gulliver’s words, delivered at the very end of the novel. Here, he signals to what the rest of his life might look like. After his wonderful experience with the Houyhnhnms, he is unable to stand the sight or proximity of his family. He is only able to see them as Yahoos, as creatures who cannot live up to his standards of good.

3. However, my speech produced nothing else besides a loud laughter, which all the respect due to his majesty from those about him could not make them contain. This made me reflect how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him. (Part II Ch 5)

–Gulliver

Here Gulliver reflects on his decision to submit himself to the Brobdingnagian king. Since he is seen as a ridiculous creature, he realizes that being at the court’s service is his best way out. When he speaks earnestly, he invites laughter from the much larger Brobdingnagians. Notably, his prospects for adventure and survival increase when he surrenders himself.

4. I confess, I was often tempted, while they were passing backwards and forwards on my body, to seize forty or fifty of the first that came in my reach, and dash them against the ground. But the remembrance of what I had felt, which probably might not be the worst they could do, and the promise of honor I made them—for so I interpreted my submissive behavior—soon drove out those imaginations. (Part I Ch 1)

–Gulliver

5. It is computed that eleven thousand persons have, at several times, suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many hundred large volumes have been published upon this controversy… (Part I Ch 4)

–Gulliver

6. …he observed how contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as I. (Part II Ch 3)

–Gulliver

7. …you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. (Part II Ch 6)

–The Brobdingnagian King

8. I was chiefly disgusted with modern history. For having strictly examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes, for a hundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayers of their country… (Part III Ch 8)

–Gulliver

9. Only in this island of Luggnagg the appetite for living was not so eager, from the continual example of the struldbrugs before their eyes. (Part III Ch 10)

–Gulliver

10. Power, government, war, law, punishment, and a thousand other things, had no terms wherein that language could express them… (Part IV Ch 4)

–Gulliver

11. He seemed therefore confident, that, instead of reason, we were only possessed of some quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill shapen body, not only larger but more distorted. (Part IV Ch 5)

–Gulliver

12. For now I could no longer deny that I was a real Yahoo in every limb and feature, since the females had a natural propensity to me, as one of their own species could, perhaps, like others, have astonished thee with strange improbable tales; but I rather chose to relate plain matter of fact, in the simplest manner and style… (Part IV Ch 8)

–Gulliver