How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight.
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-winged arrows of light. [ Cowper ]
Grief has been compared to a hydra; for every one that dies, two are born. [ Calderon ]
The wit of men compared to that of women is like rouge compared to the rose. [ Saint Foix ]
Writings may be compared to wine. Sense is the strength, but wit the flavor. [ Sterne ]
Fancy restrained may be compared to a fountain, which plays highest by diminishing the aperture. [ Goldsmith ]
A wise man in the company of those who are ignorant has been compared by the sages to a beautiful girl in the company of blind men. [ Saadi ]
A book may be compared to the life of your neighbor; if it be good, it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early. [ Brooke ]
Fame may be compared to a scold; the best way to silence her is to let her alone, and she will at last be out of breath in blowing her own trumpet. [ Fuller ]
The reputation of a woman may also be compared to a mirror of crystal, shining and bright, but liable to be sullied by every breath that comes near it. [ Cervantes ]
Wickedness may well be compared to a bottomless pit, into which it is easier to keep one's self from falling, then, being fallen, to give one's self any stay from falling infinitely. [ Sir P. Sidney ]
Sir Francis Bacon observed that a well-written book, compared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Moses' serpent, that immediately swallowed up and devoured those of the Egyptians. [ Addison ]
Who has not seen how women bully women? What tortures have men to endure compared to those daily repeated shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor women are riddled by the tyrants of their sex? [ Thackeray ]
Persecuting bigots may be compared to those burning lenses which Lenhenhoeck and others composed from ice; by their chilling apathy they freeze the suppliant; by their fiery zeal they burn the sufferer. [ Colton ]
Gold is called the bait of sin, the snare of souls, and the hook of death; which being aptly applied may be compared to a fire, whereof a little is good to warm one, but too much will burn him altogether. [ Sir R. Filmer ]
We adorn graves with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in the Holy Scriptures to those fading beauties whose roots, being buried in dishonor, rise again in glory. [ Evelyn ]
An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly. Holmes disposed of a bigot at once, when he compared his mind to the pupil of the eye - the more light you let into it the more it contracts. [ Whipple ]
Gallantry, though a fashionable crime, is a very detestable one; and the wretch who pilfers from us in the hour of distress is an innocent character compared to the plunderer who wantonly robs us of happiness and reputation. [ Rev. H. Kelley ]
Every man stamps his value on himself. The price we challenge for ourselves is given us. There does not live on earth the man, be his station what it may, that I despise myself compared with him. Man is made great or little by his own will. [ Schiller ]
O mothers! reflect upon the power that your Maker has placed in your hands; there is no earthly influence to be compared with yours; there is no combination of causes so powerful in promoting the happiness or misery of our race, as the instructions of home! [ J. S. C. Abbott ]
The enthusiast has been compared to a man walking in a fog; everything immediately around him, or in contact with him, appears sufficiently clear and luminous; but beyond the little circle of which he himself is the centre, all is mist and error and confusion. [ Colton ]
Local esteem is far more conducive to happiness than general reputation. The latter may be compared to the fixed stars which glimmer so remotely as to afford little light and no warmth. The former is like the sun, each day shedding his prolific and cheering beams. [ W. B. Clulow ]
Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons he had left them gold buried somewhere in his vineyard; where they by digging found no gold, but by turning up the mould, about the roots of their vines, procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and endeavors to make gold have brought many useful inventions and instructive experiments to light. [ Bacon ]
We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaking of the superiority of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in similar things! Each has what the other has not; each completes the other; they are in nothing alike; and the happiness and perfection of both depend on each asking and receiving from the other what the other only can give. [ Ruskin ]
A pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue a man; to enslave him, and inflame; to make him even forget; they dazzle him so that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he so prizes them that he would give all his life to possess them. What is the fond love of dearest friends compared to his treasure? Is memory as strong as expectancy, fruition as hunger, gratitude as desire? [ Thackeray ]
The blindness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the miscalculations of diplomacy seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and of authority, and is generated in high places, it may be compared to that torrent which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale. [ Colton ]
The first class of readers may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems. [ Coleridge ]