What are some similes in the everything use?

Stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, i could not being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if i were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. i wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. i saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as i was. i did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. i felt as if i alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. — “civil disobedience,” henry david thoreau based on this passage, how did thoreau feel about his confinement?

Brutus: but as he was ambitious, i slew him. . who is here so base that would be a bondman? if any, speak, for him have i offended. who is here so rude that would not be a roman? if any, speak, for him have i offended. who is here so vile that will not love his country? if any, speak, for him have i offended. i pause for a reply. which rhetorical device does brutus use in this excerpt?

At first i was afraid to approach him—then the fear left me. he was sitting looking out over the city—he was dressed in the clothes of the gods. his age was neither young nor old—i could not tell his age. but there was wisdom in his face and great sadness. you could see that he would have not run away. he had sat at his window, watching his city die—then he himself had died. but it is better to lose one's life than one's spirit—and you could see from the face that his spirit had not been lost. i knew, that, if i touched him, he would fall into dust—and yet, there was something unconquered in the face. how does the conflict at the beginning of the paragraph move the plot forward? the narrator realizes that he is scared of the gods. the narrator realizes that he distrusts the spirits the narrator realizes that the god was a man. the narrator realizes that he is powerful like the gods.