Quotes About Symbolism

The fact is that in most cases an author does not understand all the meaning of his work. Archaic symbolisms re-appear spontaneously...

life cannot be repaired, it can only be recreated through symbolic repetition of the cosmogony

On the other hand, fire itself was looked upon as the result (the progeny) of a sexual union: it was born as a result of the to-and-fro motion (compared to copulation) of a stick (representing the male organ), in a notch made in a piece of wood (female organ; cf. Rig Veda III.......)

The formation of the embryo and childbirth repeat the primeval fact of the birth of humanity, looked upon as an emergence from the deepest chtonian cavern-matrix.

Mircea Eliade

Alchemy was not an embryonic chemistry; it was a discipline bound up with a different system of significances and pursuing a different end.

The myth, like the novel, signifies primarily an autonomous act of creation by the mind.

Myth expresses in action and drama what metaphysics and theology define dialectically.

Cornelius, one of my students, wrote a poem called "The Washline" in which he described the sheets and garments on his mother's washline as having voices, of speaking with one another, of sending messages to other garments on other washlines.

Chikako could see Nobue's flowers reflected in Kaori's eyes. They looked like stars. Like love itself.

Peeling an eggplant was like unveiling an ivory-skinned woman dressed all in black.

an old woman told them they had not seen a fox but rather themselves, their love. They wondered if she meant the fox was a living symbol or the fox was unreal and just a feeling and when others looked they would see no fox at all.

I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.

He wanted to give me a blade? What's wrong with that?" "Blades," he whispered, "and sheaths go together. And your sheath will only ever hold my blade.

The bestowing of chrysanthemums indicates familial attachment and, by implication, affection.

But just now, he'd gotten on his knees and proposed marriage, like in a television commercial for a diamond ring. Except of course they had the roll of duct tape instead, which, when you came to think about it, was a far more practical item. Such a bad mistake it would be, to embark on marriage and adult life without a nice supply of duct tape.

The qualities that a given period calls beautiful in women are merely symbols of the female behavior that that period considers desirable: The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behavior and not appearance.

Marina Warner's Monuments and Maidens explains how it comes about that individual men's names and faces are enshrined in monuments, supported by identical, anonymous (and beautiful) stone women.

The blood of roses, splashed with the blood of angels, and of demons.

The moon is a cadaver and a dusty mummy and a damned rotten investment.

la historia había reservado los altares y las estampitas para san Jorge, pero al dragón le había tocado la ciudad de Barcelona en perpetuidad

could try to tell you the story, but it would be like describing a cathedral by saying it's a pile of stones ending in a spire.

The main pillar of organized religion, with few exceptions, is the subjugation, repression, even the annulment of women in the group. Woman must accept the role of an ethereal, passive, and maternal presence, never of authority or independence, or she will have to suffer the consequences. She might have a place of honor in the symbolism, but not in the hierarchy. Religion and war are male pursuits. And anyhow, woman sometimes ends up becoming the accomplice in her own subjugation.

She might have a place of honour in the symbolism, but not in the hierarchy. Religion and war are male pursuits.