See Also: HABIT

1. Adaptable as a Norwegian wharf rat —James Mills
2. Adjustable as prices of goods sold in a flea market —Anon
3. Adjust to as your eyes adjust to darkness or sudden light —Anon
4. Be pliable like a reed, not rigid like a cedar —Rabbi Simeon ben Eleazar
5. Elastic as a criminal’s conscience —Anon
6. Elastic as a steel spring —Anon
7. Flexible as a diplomat’s conscience —Anon
8. Flexible as figures in the hands of the statistician —Israel Zangwill
9. Flexible as silk —Ouida
10. Has as much give as a tree trunk —Jimmy Breslin
11. Implacable an adversary as a wife suing for alimony —William Wycherly
12. (Softly, unhurriedly but) implacably, like a great river flowing on and on —Harvey Swados
13. Inflexible as a marble pillar —Anon
14. Inflexible as steel —Ouida
15. Inflexible as the rings of hell —John Cheever
16. Intractable as a driven ghost —Sylvia Plath
17. Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind —W. Somerset Maugham
18. (The adolescent personality is as) malleable as infant flesh —Barbara Lazear Ascher, New York Times/Hers, October 23, 1986
19. The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind —William Blake
20. Mind set like concrete —George Garrett
21. Pliable as wax —James Shirley
22. Pliant as cloth —Eugene Sue
23. Pliant as flesh —Linda Pastan
24. Rigidity yielding a little, like justice swayed by mercy, is the whole beauty of the earth —G. K. Chesterton
25. Set as a piece of sculpture —Charles Dickens
26. They made their hearts as an adamant stone —The Holy Bible/Apocrypha

    A variation from “Hearts firm as stone” and “Cold as stone” from the Book of Job.

27. Uncompromising as a policeman’s club —Anon
28. Uncompromising as justice —William Lloyd Garrison
29. (There he was, as) unshakable as granite —Frank Swinnerton