See Also: BODY, COURAGE, MUSCLES, TOUGHNESS

1. Air of impregnability that he carried with him like a briefcase full of secrets —Derek Lambert
2. As indestructible as a bride’s first set of biscuits —Jim Murray, about football player Mike Garrett, Los Angeles Herald
3. Bones … like bars of iron —The Holy Bible/Job
4. Built like a bouncer in a clip joint —Saul Bellow
5. Built like a brick shit-house —American colloquialism, popularized in American army.

   With slight alterations some of the more colorful army and country similes can be cleaned up with the original meaning still implicit. For example, in her novel, Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich describes a character as being “Built like a brick outhouse.”

6. Built like a toolbox —Lee K. Abbott
7. A cobweb is as good as the mightiest cable when there is no strain upon it —Henry Ward Beecher
8. Gave off a sense of virility almost as positive as an odor —Samuel Yellen
9. Get the upper hand … like a strong sun —Albert Camus
10. Grew strong, as if doubt never touched his heart —Wallace Stevens
11. (Our meaning together is) hardy as an onion (and layered) —Marge Piercy
12. I am as strong as a bull moose —Theodore Roosevelt
13. I am like a forest that has once been razed; the new shoots are stronger and brisker —Victor Hugo
14. Looked as durable and tough as a tree growing on a stony hillside —Mazo De La Roche
15. Solid and strong, like a little bull —Frank Tuohy
16. Solid as a temple —Louis MacNeice
17. Strong and hard as a tree —Vicki Baum

    Some other strength/tree comparisons include: “Strong as an old apple tree” (Eudora Welty) and “Sturdy as an oak trunk” (Ignazio Silone).

18. Strong as a door —Reynolds Price
19. Strong as a giant —Erich Maria Remarque
20. (A soul) strong as a mountain river —William Wordsworth
21. (An alibi as) strong as a twenty-foot wall —Jimmy Sangster
22. (And the muscles of his brawny arms are) strong as iron bands —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
23. Strong as jealousy —William Blake
24. Strong as money —Philip Levine

    What poet Levine is comparing to the strength of money is work.

25. (Somone wakens to a life as) strong as the smell of urine —Philip Levine
26. Strong as the summer sun —Anon
27. (Had grown) strong as the sun or the sea —Algernon Charles Swinburne
28. (This old woman is dangerous: she is as) strong as three men —George Bernard Shaw
29. Strong as the young, and as uncontrolled —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
30. Stronger than mahogany —Anne Sexton
31. Strong, like a tower —Nina Bawden
32. (Vemish and his wife were) strong, like rocks, not like rivers. Their strength was more in remaining than in doing —Barry Targan
33. (Your blunderer is as) sturdy as a rock —William Cowper
34. Takes brute strength, like pushing a cow uphill —Anne Sexton
35. Using his fist the way a carpenter uses a hammer —Irwin Shaw
36. You’re [Alais addressing King Henry in The Lion in Winter] like the rocks at Stonehenge; nothing knocks you down —James Goldman