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Home  »  A Dictionary of Similes  »  Sir Thomas Overbury

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

Sir Thomas Overbury

The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors is like a potato,—the only good belonging to him is under ground.

A chaste beauty is like the bellows, whose breath is cold, yet makes others burn.

Chambermaids are like lotteries: you may draw twenty, ere one worth anything.

Devotion, like fire in froste weather, burns hottest in affliction.

Her eyes are like free-booters, living upon the spoile of stragglers.

Eyes like an orange-grove
In whose enchanted bowers the magic fire-flies rove.

She is hid away all but her face, and that’s hung about with toys and devices, like the signe of a taverne, to draw strangers.

Goodnesse is like the art prospective: one point center, begetting infinite rayes.

A wise man’s heart is like a broad hearth that keeps the coales [his passions] from burning the house.

Her favour lifts him up, as the sun moisture.

A wise rich man is like the backe or stocke of the chimney, and his wealth the fire; he receives it not for his own need, but to reflect the heat to others’ good.

A fool’s tongue is like the buye of an anchor, you will find his heart by it where soever it lyes.

Unwelcome to any conceit as sluttish morsels, or wallowish potions to a nice stomach.

Every great vice is like a pike in a pond, that devours virtues and lesser vices.