Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases, Grenville Kleiser [learn to read books TXT] 📗

ideal as sublime and comprehensive as the horizon

An immortal spirit dwelt in that frail body, like a bird in an outworn cage

An impudent trick as hackneyed as conjuring rabbits out of a hat

An indefinable resemblance to a goat

An isle of Paradise, fair as a gem

An old nodding negress whose sable head shined in the sun like a polished cocoanut

An omnibus across the bridge crawls like a yellow butterfly

An undefined sadness seemed to have fallen about her like a cloud

An unknown world, wild as primeval chaos

An unpleasing strain, like the vibration of a rope drawn out too fast

And a pinnace like a flutter'd bird came flying from afar

And a tear like silver, glistened in the corner of her eye

And all our thoughts ran into tears like sunshine into rain

And at first the road comes moving toward me, like a bride waving palms

And Dusk, with breast as of a dove, brooded

And eyes as bright as the day

And fell as cold as a lump of clay

And her cheek was like a rose

And here were forests ancient as the hills

And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, as clear as elemental diamond, or serene morning air

And melting like the stars in June

And night, as welcome as a friend

And silence like a poultice comes to heal the blows of sound

And spangled o'er with twinkling points, like stars

And the smile she softly uses fills the silence like a speech

As a child in play scatters the heaps of sand that he has piled on the seashore

As a cloud that gathers her robe like drifted snow

As a flower after a drought drinks in the steady plunging rain

As a leaf that beats on a mountain

As a lion grieves at the loss of her whelps

As a man plowing all day longs for supper and welcomes sunset

As a sea disturbed by opposing winds

As amusing as a litter of likely young pigs

As arbitrary as a cyclone and as killing as a pestilence

As austere as a Roman matron

As beautiful as the purple flush of dawn

As blind as a mole

As brief as sunset clouds in heaven

As bright as sunlight on a stream

As busy as a bee

As cattle driven by a gadfly

As chimney sweepers come to dust

As clear as a whistle

As clear as the parts of a tree in the morning sun

As close as oak and ivy stand

As delicate and as fair as a lily

As delightful to the mind as cool well-water to thirsty lip

As diamond cuts diamond

As direct and unvarying as the course of a homing bird

As distinct as night and morning

As dry as desert dust

As dumb as a fish

As easily as the sun shines

As easy as a turn of the hand

As elastic as a steel spring

As extinct as the dodo

As faint as the memory of a sound

As familiar to him as his alphabet

As fatal as the fang of the most venomous snake

As fleeting and elusive as our dreams

As foam from a ship's swiftness

As fresh and invigorating as a sea-breeze

As full of eager vigor as a mountain stream

As full of spirit as a gray squirrel

As gay and busy as a brook

As gently as the flower gives forth its perfume

As gently as withered leaves float from a tree

As graceful as a bough

As grave as a judge

As great as the first day of creation

As high as heaven

As I dropped like a bolt from the blue

As I dwelt like a sparrow among the spires

As if a door were suddenly left ajar into some world unseen before

As impossible as to count the stars in illimitable space

As in the footsteps of a god

As inaccessible to his feet as the clefts and gorges of the clouds

As inexorable as the flight of time

As innocent as a new laid egg

As iridescent as a soap bubble

As locusts gather to a stream before a fire

As mellow and deep as a psalm

As men strip for a race, so must an author strip for the race with time

As merry as bees in clover

As nimble as water

As one who has climbed above the earth's eternal snowline and sees only white peaks and pinnacles

As pale as any ghost

As patient as the trees

As quick as the movement of some wild animal

As quiet as a nun breathless with adoration

As radiant as the rose

As readily and naturally as ducklings take to water

As reticent as a well-bred stockbroker

As ruthlessly as the hoof of a horse tramples on a rose

As shallow streams run dimpling all the way

As simple as the intercourse of a child with its mother

As sleep falls upon the eyes of a child tired with a long summer day of eager pleasure and delight

As some vast river of unfailing source

As stars that shoot along the sky

As still as a stone

As stupid as a sheep

As sudden as a dislocated joint slipping back into place

As summer winds that creep from flower to flower

As supple as a step-ladder

As swaggering and sentimental as a penny novellete [novellete = short novel]

As swift as thought

As the accumulation of snowflakes makes the avalanche

As the bubble is extinguished in the ocean

As the dew upon the roses warms and melts the morning light

As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze, lies self-embalmed amidst the moldering trees

As the light straw flies in dark'ning whirlwinds

As the lightning cleaves the night

As the loud blast that tears the skies

As the slow shadows of the pointed grass mark the eternal periods

As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance

As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again

As though Pharaoh should set the Israelites to make a pin instead of a pyramid

As unapproachable as a star

As weird as the elfin lights

As well try to photograph the other side of the moon

At extreme tension, like a drawn bow

Away he rushed like a cyclone

Awkward as a cart-horse

B

Babbling like a child

Balmy in manner as a bland southern morning

Be like the granite of thy rock-ribbed land

Beauteous she looks as a water-lily

Beautiful as the dawn, dominant as the sun

Beauty maddens the soul like wine

Beheld great Babel, wrathful, beautiful, burn like a blood-red cloud upon the plain

Beneath a sky as fair as summer flowers

Bent like a wand of willow

Black as a foam-swept rock

Black his hair as the wintry night

Blithe as a bird [blithe = carefree and lighthearted]

Bounded by the narrow fences of life

Bowed like a mountain

Breaking his oath and resolution like a twist of rotten silk

Breathed like a sea at rest

Bright as a diamond in the sun

Bright as a fallen fragment of the sky

Bright as the coming forth of the morning, in the cloud of an early shower

Bright as the sunbeams

Bright as the tear of an angel, glittered a lonely star

Brilliant and gay as a Greek

Brisk as a wasp in the sunshine

Brittle and bent like a bow

Bronze-green beetles tumbled over stones, and lay helpless on their backs with the air of an elderly clergyman knocked down by an omnibus

Brown as the sweet smelling loam

Brute terrors like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic

Buried in his library like a mouse in a cheese

Burns like a living coal in the soul

But across it, like a mob's menace, fell the thunder

But thou art fled, like some frail exhalation

Butterflies like gems

C

Calm as the night

Calm like a flowing river

Calm like a mountain brooding o'er the sea

Calmly dropping care like a mantle from her shoulders

Cast thy voice abroad like thunder

Charm upon charm in her was packed, like rose-leaves in a costly vase

Chaste as the icicle

Cheeks as soft as July peaches

Chill breath of winter

Choked by the thorns and brambles of early adversity

Cities scattered over the world like ant-hills

Cities that rise and sink like bubbles

Clear and definite like the glance of a child or the voice of a girl

Clear as a forest pool

Clear as crystal

Clenched little hands like rumpled roses, dimpled and dear

Cloud-like that island hung afar

Clouds like the petals of a rose

Cloudy mirror of opinion

Cold and hard as steel

Cold as the white rose waking at daybreak

Cold, glittering monotony like frosting around a cake

Collapsed like a concertina

Colored like a fairy tale

Companionless as the last cloud of an expiring storm whose thunder is its knell

Consecration that like a golden thread
runs through the warp and woof of one's life
                                           [warp = lengthwise threads]
                                           [woof = crosswise threads]

Constant as gliding waters

Contending like ants for little molehill realms

Continuous as the stars that shine

Cowslips, like chance-found gold

Creeds like robes are laid aside

Creeping like a snail, unwillingly to school

Cruel as death

Curious as a lynx

Cuts into the matter as with a pen of fire

D

Dainty as flowers

Dance like a wave of the sea

Dark and deep as night

Dark as pitch

Dark trees bending together as though whispering secrets

Dazzling white as snow in sunshine

Deafening and implacable as some elemental force

Dear as remembered kisses after death

Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes

Dearer than night to the thief

Debasing fancies gather like foul birds

Deep as the fathomless sea

Deep dark well of sorrow

Delicate as nymphs

Delicate as the flush on a rose or the sculptured line on a Grecian urn

Denominational lines like stone walls

Dependency had dropped from her like a cast-off cloak

Despondency clung to him like a garment that is wet

Destructive as the lightning flash

Die like flies

Dip and surge lightly to and fro, like the red harbor-buoy

Disappearing into distance like a hazy sea

Dissatisfaction had settled on his mind like a shadow

Dissolve like some unsubstantial vision faded

Do make a music like to rustling satin

Dogging them like their own shadow

Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale like water bubbling from a silver jar?

Drop like a feather, softly to the ground

Drowned like rats

Dull as champagne

E

Each like a corpse within its grave

Each moment was an iridescent bubble fresh-blown from the lips of fancy

Eager-hearted as a boy

Eager with the headlong zest of a hunter for the game

Ears that seemed as deaf as dead man's ears

Easy as a poet's dream

Emotions flashed across her face like the sweep of sun-rent clouds over a quiet landscape

Eternal as the skies

Evanescent as bubbles [evanescent = vanishing like vapor]

Every flake that fell from heaven was like an angel's kiss

Every lineament was clear as in the sculptor's thought [lineament = characteristic feature]

Everyone on the watch, like a falcon on its nest

Every phrase is like