Gulliver's Travels by Jonathon Swift: Chapter 6

"They bury their dead with their heads directly downward, because they hold an opinion, that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again; in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at their resurrection, be found ready standing on their feet.  The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine; but the practice still continues, in compliance to the vulgar." [makes little sense, as they have nothing to put there feet on, but that's how traditions are]

"Their notions relating to the duties of parents and children differ extremely from ours.  For, since the conjunction of male and female is founded upon the great law of nature, in order to propagate and continue the species, the Lilliputians will needs have it, that men and women are joined together, like other animals, by the motives of concupiscence; and that their tenderness towards their young proceeds from the like natural principle: for which reason they will never allow that a child is under any obligation to his father for begetting him, or to his mother for bringing him into the world; which, considering the miseries of human life, was neither a benefit in itself, nor intended so by his parents, whose thoughts, in their love encounters, were otherwise employed.  Upon these, and the like reasonings, their opinion is, that parents are the last of all others to be trusted with the education of their own children;" [Something to ponder on]

"Having a head mechanically turned, and being likewise forced by necessity, I had made for myself a table and chair convenient enough, out of the largest trees in the royal park." ['A head xally turned' - such an good expression!]