Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Sir Thomas Overbury
The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors is like a potato,—the only good belonging to him is under ground.A chaste beauty is like the bellows, whose breath is cold, yet makes others burn.Chambermaids are like lotteries: you may draw twenty, ere one worth anything.Devotion, like fire in froste weather, burns hottest in affliction.Her eyes are like free-booters, living upon the spoile of stragglers.Eyes like an orange-grove
In whose enchanted bowers the magic fire-flies rove.She is hid away all but her face, and that’s hung about with toys and devices, like the signe of a taverne, to draw strangers.Goodnesse is like the art prospective: one point center, begetting infinite rayes.A wise man’s heart is like a broad hearth that keeps the coales [his passions] from burning the house.Her favour lifts him up, as the sun moisture.A wise rich man is like the backe or stocke of the chimney, and his wealth the fire; he receives it not for his own need, but to reflect the heat to others’ good.A fool’s tongue is like the buye of an anchor, you will find his heart by it where soever it lyes.Unwelcome to any conceit as sluttish morsels, or wallowish potions to a nice stomach.Every great vice is like a pike in a pond, that devours virtues and lesser vices.
