1. (His presence was) a foreboding, or dismal signal, like drawn blinds —Elizabeth Taylor
2. Dangerous as a gift from an enemy —Anon

   A twist on the Danish proverb “Gifts from enemies are dangerous.”

3. Dangerous as cocaine —Pietro Mascagni

   The danger being described is modern music.

4. (I feel so many) dangers gathering round, like shadows —Davis Grubb
5. Feel as though I’m dancing on a volcano —Rita Mae Brown
6. Felt as if they were about to dive onto a postage stamp from the top of the Eiffel Tower —Fred Taylor
7. (One’s life) hangs perilously in danger, like ripe fruit on a thin branch —Stephen Longstreet
8. Hazardous as sand traps for golfers —Anon
9. It [the need to risk] was like statistics or gambling; you had to compute probabilities —Mary McCarthy

   In her novel, A Charmed Life, McCarthy expands on her simile with this sentence: “And there was always the unforeseen, the little thing you overlooked that would catch you up in the end.”

10. The menace (of insanity) is like a warder, restricting my freedom of mind —Richard Maynard
11. (His) menaces … idle as the wind —W. S. Gilbert
12. Menacing as a fury —Natascha Wodin
13. Ominous and dark as the hour before a storm —Gerald Kersh
14. Ominous, like waves in a gathering mid-Atlantic storm —Anon
15. Rode precariously, like high-wire artists —Ross Macdonald
16. Safe as a cow in a stockyard —Anon
17. Safe as a mouse in cheese —John Ray’s Proverbs
18. The safe earth … grew narrow as a grave —Phyllis Bottome
19. There was a feeling like a concussion in the air —Eudora Welty
20. This faint shadow [of danger] lay upon his life … as discreetly as the shadow of cancer lies among cells —Thomas McGuane
21. Trying to maintain good relations with a Communist is like wooing a crocodile —Winston Churchill

(See also PRECARIOUSNESS, PREDICAMENT, RISK, VULNERABILITY.)

beware the ides of March See SUPERSTITION.

cat ice Flimsy ground, precarious condition. Cat ice is extremely thin ice formed on shallow water which has since receded. It owes its name to the belief that it could not support even the weight of a cat. The phrase has been in use since 1884.

nourish a snake in one’s bosom To show kindness to one who proves ungrateful. The allusion is to the Aesop fable in which a farmer, finding a snake frozen stiff with cold, placed it in his bosom. The snake, thawed by the warmth, quickly revived and inflicted a fatal bite on its benefactor.

snake in the grass A sneak, dastard, skulker; a suspicious, treacherous, or disingenuous person; a traitor or craven; any lurking danger. This expression is derived from a line in Virgil’s Third Eclogue (approx. 40 B.c.), Latet anguis in herba ‘a snake lurks in the grass,’ alluding to the potential danger posed by a poisonous snake that is hidden in the grass as if in ambush.

sword of Damocles The threat of impending danger or doom; also Damocles’ sword.

The allusion is to the sycophant Damocles, invited by Dionysius of Syracuse to a lavish banquet. But Damocles could not enjoy the sumptuous feast because Dionysius had had suspended over his head a sword hanging by a single hair. He dared not move lest the sword fall and kill him. See also hang by a thread, PRECARIOUSNESS.