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

Sir John Vanbrugh

Coxcombs keep each other company, like two knives, to whet each other.

A fool, like a bottle, which would make you merry in company, will make you dull alone.

Extended as the heavens.

Extravagance is like a violent fire, that is no sooner stopped in one place than it breaks out in another.

Furious … as a bitch is when she has lost her puppies.

As gay as a bridegroom.

Implacable an adversary as a wife suing for alimony.

She looks like an old coach new painted, affecting an unseemly smugness, whilst she is ready to drop to pieces.

Love … like a pirate, takes you by spreading false colors.

Love, like virtue, is its own reward.

Love, like fortune, turns upon a heel, and is very much given to rising and falling.

Young lovers, like game cocks, are made bolder by being kept without light.

Marrying a widow is an easy business, like leaping the hedge where another has gone over before.

Mistresses, like friends, are lost by letting ’em handle your money.

Silent in conversation as a country lover.

Wander from mistress to mistress, like a pilgrim from town to town, who every night must have a fresh lodging, and ’s in haste to be gone in the morning.

Yawn and stretch like a greyhound by the fireside.

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