Expressing similarity in a single sentence

Question

I want to express similarity in a single sentence, e.g.,

• "Oil to the car is that of food to our body"
• "words from his mouth is equal to sword to the enemy"

I remember there is a pattern somewhat like above but I cannot remember clearly now.

Answer 1

For the first example,

Oil to the car is that of food to our body.

The nearest grammatical and idiomatic expression I can think of is

Oil is to the car what food is to the body.

For the second example,

words from his mouth is equal to sword to the enemy

I'm not sure what you are referring to; maybe

He uses his words like a sword.