Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Difficult
Difficult as a Greek puzzle.
—Anonymous
Difficult as to forgive the virtues of our enemies.
—Anonymous
Difficult as to grasp a shadow.
—Anonymous
Difficult as to hiss and yawn at the same time.
—Anonymous
Difficult as to pin a medal on a shadow.
—Anonymous
Difficult as to sail the sea in an egg shell.
—Anonymous
Difficult as to remember a rhyme made in a dream.
—Anonymous
Difficult as to walk a mile on stilts upon a line of feather-beds.
—Anonymous
Difficult as a beginning.
—Lord Byron
Difficult … as for a rattlesnake to stir without making a noise.
—C. C. Colton
Difficult as it would be to hum an air from an opera bouffe while listening to the overture of Tannhäuser.
—Arthur Jerome Eddy
Difficult to grasp as the small end of a hard boiled egg.
—Robert Edgren
As difficult … as to preserve your purse at a gaming-table or your health at a bawdy house.
—Henry Fielding
As difficult as for a slave girl to please a slave-dealer.
—Osmanli Proverb
Difficult as to distinguish colors in the darkness.
—Sir Richard Steele