| A | B |
|---|
| The swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot. | paradox |
| There is an incessant influx of novelty in the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness. | antithesis |
| We are sound asleep half the time, yet we esteem ourselves wise. | antithesis |
| Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. | antithesis |
| this small Herculean labor | oxymoron |
| They are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break in and steal. | allusion |
| Men say a stitch in time saves nine, so they make a thousand stitches to save nine tomorrow. | hyperbole |
| A living dog is better than a dead lion. | aphorism |
| A goose is a goose still, dress it as you will. | aphorism |
| If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. | aphorism |
| Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. | metaphor |
| I had three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for companionship, and three for society. | analogy |
| The fault finder will find fault even in paradise. | alliteration |
| I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are keepers of men. | chiasmus |
| When the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it may be that the house has got him. | chiasmus |
| I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way. | antithesis |
| The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. | oxymoron |
| ...that you made persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes or his hat or his coat or his carriage or import his groceries for him. | polysyndeton |
| Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? | rhetorical question |
| ...dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, not only state prison offenses; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves in a nutshell... | asyndeton |
| this small Herculean labor | oxymoron |
| A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. | paradox |
| deliberate lack of conjunctions | asyndeton |
| a type of sentence in which the point last; subject and verb last | periodic |
| This type of sentence presents a supposition—the simple sentence—and then takes off running | cumulative |
| As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts, and hide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor, I am reminded of a greater Benefactor and intelligence that stands over me the human insect. | periodic |
| We must be refreshed with the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets | cumulative |
| a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification. | analogy |
| putting two contradictory words together | oxymoron |
| Employing many conjunctions between clauses | polysyndeton |
| something that is a contradiction but is true. | paradox |
| juxtaposition of opposing words or ideas | antithesis |
| rammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order | chiasmus |
| We are underbred and low-lived and illiterate. | polysyndeton |
| We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. | chiasmus |
