See Also: HELPLESSNESS, LIFE, PEOPLE

1. As the clay is in the potter’s hand, to fashion at his pleasure: so man is in the hand of Him that made him —The Holy Bible/Apocrypha
2. Every man is like his affliction —André Malraux
3. Extraordinary men, like the stones that are formed in the highest regions of the air, fall upon the earth only to be broken and cast into the furnace —Walter Savage Landor
4. He [man] bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions … as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints —Herman Melville
5. Human as a kiss —Vance Thompson
6. Human beings are like timid punctuation marks sprinkled among the incomprehensible sentences of life —Jean Giraudoux
7. Humanity is like people packed in an automobile which is traveling down the highway without lights on a dark night at terrific speed and driven by a four-year old —Lord Dunsany
8. It is with men as with horses; those who do the most prancing make the least progress —Baron de Stassart

   See Also: SUCCESS

9. Like leaves on trees, the race of man is found, now green in youth, now withering on the ground —Homer
10. Like the hours in the day, people come in two classes: the happy and the sad —Bin Ramke
11. Like the irresponsible black waterbugs on summer ponds, they [people in cities] crawl and circle and hustle about idiotically, without aim or purpose —O. Henry
12. Man … cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower —The Book of Common Prayer
13. Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman, a rope over an abyss —Friedrich Nietzsche
14. Man is as full of potentiality as he is of impotence —George Santayana
15. Man is like a ball tossed betwixt the wind and the billows —Friedrich von Schiller
16. A man is like a letter of the alphabet: to produce a word, it must combine with another —Benjamin Mandelstamm
17. A man is like all earth’s fruit, you preserve him dry or pickled —Hayden Carruth
18. Man is like a musical box. An imperceptible jolt, and he plays a different tune —Ludwig Boerne
19. Man is like a precious stone: cut and polished by morals, adorned by wisdom —Isaac Halevi Satanov
20. Mankind is like the Red Sea: the staff has scarcely parted the waves asunder, before they flow together again —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
21. A man like a watch is to be valued for his goings —Turkish proverb
22. Man’s like a bird all the days of his breath, and pleasures are nets that allure him to death —Judah Al-Harizi
23. Man’s like a candle in a candlestick made up tallow, and a little wick —John Bunyan
24. Men are like bricks, alike but placed high or low by chance —John Webster
25. Men are like ciphers: they acquire their value merely from their position —Napoleon Bonaparte
26. Men are like ears of corn: the emptier the head the more and the lower they stoop —Moritz Gottlieb Saphir
27. Men are like nuts; you can’t tell what they’re like till they’re broken —Phyllis Bottome

    This simile marks the opening of Bottome’s story, A Lost Leader.

28. Men are like plants; the goodness and flavor of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow —Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur
29. Men are like the herbs of the field; while some are sprouting, others are withering —Babylonian Talmud
30. Men are like strange dogs … walk right up to them, bold as life, and they’re as gentle as ducks —Owen Johnson
31. Men are like the stars: some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive —José Marti
32. Men are like trees … each one must put forth the leaf that is created in him —Henry Ward Beecher
33. Men are like weasels: weasels drag and lay up and know not for whom, and men save and hoard and know not for whom —Talmud
34. Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
35. Others are to us like the ‘characters’ in fiction, eternal and incorrigible —Mary McCarthy
36. People are like planks of wood: soft until seasoned —St. John De Chevecoeur
37. People are mostly layers of violence and tenderness, wrapped like bulbs —Eudora Welty
38. People are somewhat like novels, we operate on beginnings, middles, and ends —Charles Johnson

    In Johnson’s novel, Faith and the Good Thing, the simile includes this parenthetical comment: “Don’t make too much of that simile.”

39. People are very much like flagstaffs. Some flagstaffs are very tall and prominent and some are small —Harry Emerson Fosdick

    Fosdick’s simile continued with the following observation: “But the glory of a flagstaff is not its size but the colors that it flies. A very small flagstaff flying the right colors is far more valuable than a very tall one with the wrong flag.”

40. The race of men is like the race of leaves. As one generation flourishes another decays —Homer
41. Some individuals are like a brush heap, a helter-skelter, miscellaneous pile of twigs and branches —Harry Emerson Fosdick
42. Some men are like Einstein’s theory of relativity; nobody at home understands them —Anon
43. Some men are like pyramids, which are very broad where they touch the ground, but grow narrow as they reach the sky —Henry Ward Beecher
44. Some men are like rifles with plenty of powder but no bullet … a great flow of language but no thought —Sylvanys Stall

    See Also: TALKATIVENESS

45. So much of a man walks about dead … like a pianoforte with half the notes mute —D. H. Lawrence
46. Strong men are made by opposition; like kites they go up against the wind —Frank Harris, Reader’s Digest, June, 1936
47. The study of human nature is a good deal like the study of dissection: you find out a good many curious things, but it is a nasty job after all —Josh Billings

    Billings wrote this in dialect which read as follows: “The studdy ov huymin natur is a gooddeal like the studdy ov dessekshun, yu finde out a good menny curis things, aut it is nasty job after awl.”

48. To the gods we are as flies to wanton boys —William Shakespeare
49. We are all like vessels tossed on the bottom of the deep —Pietro Mestastasio

    The simile continues: “Our passions are the winds that sweep us impetuously onward; each pleasure is a rock; the whole of life is a wide ocean.”

50. We are like sun that rises and sheds light upon things, and then falls and leaves them in darkness again —William Goyen
51. We run to and fro upon the earth like frightened sheep —Robert Louis Stevenson
52. What a piece of work is a man! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! —William Shakespeare