Dark as pitch. [ Bunyan ]

Having waste ground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary
And pitch our evils there? [ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure ]

They that touch pitch will be defiled. [ William Shakespeare ]

He that handles pitch shall foul his fingers. [ Proverb ]

Parasites pitch up toils to catch deer in a platter. [ Proverb ]

Pitch upon the best course of life, and custom will render it the most easy. [ Tillotson ]

To a father waxing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter; sons have spirits of a higher pitch, but less inclined to endearing fondness. [ Euripides ]

Some folks say it was a miracle. Saint Francis suddenly appeared and knocked the next pitch clean over the fence. But I think it was just a lucky swing. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]

Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. [ Hume ]

Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. [ Hume ]

With a clear sky, a bright sun, and a gentle breeze, you have friends in plenty; but let fortune frown, and the firmament be overcast, and then your friends will prove like the strings of the lute, of which you tighten ten before you find one that will bear the stretch and keep the pitch. [ Gotthold ]

The stifled hum of midnight, when traffic has lain down to rest, and the chariot wheels of Vanity, still rolling here and there through distant streets are bearing her to halls roofed in and lighted to the due pitch for her; and only vice and misery, to prowl or to moan like night birds, are abroad. [ Carlyle ]

Any one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts; but to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express; it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it. [ Hazlitt ]