Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
People
The people in mass are like metal in the ore; and, as all the iron that ever came from a Swedish mine would never hew a block or divide a plank until it was fashioned into the shape of a hatchet or a saw, so the strength of a people can never perhaps be made capable of producing much effect in war, till it is extracted partially and moulded into that factitious and highly polished instrument called an army.
—Sir Archibald Alison
Impatient people, according to Bacon, are like the bees, and kill themselves in stinging others.
—George Eliot
Peoples, like planets, possess the right to an eclipse. And all is well, provided that the light returns and that the eclipse does not degenerate into night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous.
—Victor Hugo
It is with narrow soul’d people as with narrow necked bottles, the less they have in them the more noise they make in pouring it out.
—Jonathan Swift