Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Rare
Rare as a blue rose.
—Anonymous
Rare as a snowbird in hell.
—Anonymous
Rare as a sunflower in the desert.
—Anonymous
Rare as venison in a poor man’s kitchen.
—Anonymous
Rare as a winter swallow.
—Honoré de Balzac
As rare almost as hedge-rows in the wild.
—William Cowper
Rare as an Albino in Africa.
—W. R. Hereford
As rare to see the Sunne with-out a light, as a fayre woeman with-out a lover.
—John Lyly
As rare as wings upon a cat, or flowers of air, a rabbit’s horns, or ropes of tortoise-hair.
—Asian
Rare as a comet.
—James Ralph
Rare as a play that does not yawn you, or a woman that does not deceive you.
—Charles Reade
Rarer than a phœnix.
—Agnes Repplier
Rare to be found as black swans.
—Daniel Roger (Matrimoniall Honour, 1642)
Rare as the stars upon a clouded night.
—Louise Morgan Sill
Rare as a dodo.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Like snow at Midsummer, exceeding rare.
—John Taylor
Rare as Homers and Miltons, rare as Platos and Newtons.
—Edwin P. Whipple