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

Arthur S. Schopenhauer

But with puberty divergence begins; and, like the radii of a circle, we go further and further apart.

Our memory is like a sieve, the holes of which in time get larger and larger; the older we get, the quicker anything intrusted to it slips from the memory, whereas what was fixed fast in it in early days is there still.

Poorly appreciated—like a fine landscape in dull weather—or in the reflection of a bad camera obscura.

Authors I have named are like certain workers in metal, who try a hundred different compounds to take the place of gold—the only metal which can never have any substitute.

Happy circumstances in life are like certain groups of trees. Seen from the distance they look very well; but go up to them and among them, and the beauty vanishes; you don’t know where it can be; it is only trees you see. And so it is that we often envy the lot of others.

His head is like a stomach and intestines which let the food pass through them undigested.

Work involuntarily, like the heart.

Our life is like a journey on which, as we advance, the landscape takes a different view from that which it presented at first, and changes again, as we come nearer.

At ten, Mercury is in the ascendant; and at that age, a man, like this planet, is characterized by extreme mobility within a narrow sphere where trifles have a great effect upon him; but under the guidance of so crafty and eloquent a god, he easily makes great progress. Venus begins her sway during his twentieth year, and then a man is wholly given up to the love of women. At thirty, Mars comes to the front, and he is now all energy and strength—daring, pugnacious, and arrogant.

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the center of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.

Society is in this respect like a fire—the wise man warming himself at a proper distance from it; not coming too close like a fool, who, on getting scorched, runs away and shivers in solitude, loud in his complaint that the fire burns.

The presence of a thought is like the presence of a loved one. We deem that we shall never forget this thought and that the loved one can never become indifferent to us. But out of sight, out of mind! The most beautiful thought runs the risk of being irrevocably forgotten if it is not written down, and the loved one to be torn from us if she has not been wedded.

Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another’s flesh; it adheres to us only because it is put on.

Wisdom which is only theoretical and never put into practise is like a double rose; its color and its perfume are delightful, but it withers away and leaves no seed.

Everything in the world is like a hollow nut; there is little kernel anywhere, and when it does exist, it is still more rare to find it in the shell.

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