Untouchability is a blot on Hinduism. It is a canker eating into its vitals.
I'm Gentleman Death in silk and lace, come to put out the candles. The canker in the heart of the rose.
Of all the cankers of human happiness, none corrodes with so silent, yet so baneful a tooth as indolence.
See Robert Burton {596290} for an earlier view with which Jefferson was probably familiar.
Think of spoiled cat food and ulcerated cankers and expired donor organs. That's how beautiful she looks.
A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else.
Outward attacks and troubles rather fix than unsettle the Christian, as tempests from without only serve to root the oak faster; while an inward canker will gradually rot and decay it.
And writers say, as the most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, Even so by love the young and tender wit Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud, Losing his verdure even in the prime, And all the fair effects of future hopes.