Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

Henry Ward Beecher

Black as a coal pit.

The body is like a piano, and happiness is like music. It is needful to have the instrument in good order.

A house without books is like a room without windows.

Character, like porcelain ware, must be painted before it is glazed. There can be no change after it is burned in.

Many men carry their conscience like a drawn sword, cutting this way and that, in the world, but sheath it and keep it very soft and quiet, when it is turned within, thinking that a sword should not be allowed to cut its own scabbard.

A face that cannot smile is like a bud that cannot blossom which dries up in the stalk.

The mind’s action is like that of an engineer who works under water. He goes down in a diving-bell, and is hidden. The work progresses, and the structure rises, but it does not show above water at all. It is there, but it is deep-seated and concealed.

God pardons like a mother who kisses away the repentant tears of her child.

A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like a summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden.

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