Quotes About Symbolism

Archetypal images decide the fate of man.

The image of God has a shadow. The supreme meaning is real and casts a shadow. For what can be actual and corporeal and have no shadows?

A dream is nothing but a lucky idea that comes to us from the dark, all-unifying world of the psyche. What would be more natural, when we have lost ourselves amid the endless particulars and isolated details of the world's surface, than to knock at the door of dreams and inquire of them the bearings which would bring us closer to the basic facts of human existence?

Dreams are the guiding words of the soul.

For River to discover himself in Rimbaud's life and Miller's prose was simultaneously self-aggrandizing and self-pitying. Tellingly, he was more interested in Miller's book than in Rimbaud's actual writing: he responded to Rimbaud not as a poet, but as a symbol.

I recognized that the kiss was a door I had walked through.

Saamne jo stengundhaari khada tha, uski sangeen se phootee shaan, uske seene ko gubbare kee trah phulaa gayee thee. Aur uske maathe par chandan ka tilak tha. The stengunner in front of us, the one with majesty bursting out of his muzzle, whose chest was puffed up like a balloon. And he wore a sandalwood tilak on his forehead.

That didn't change her plans, however. She would seduce him - and then she would slice his heart in two. A symbolic gesture, really. An inside joke between them. Well, for herself. He might not get". - Bianka of Lasyter

Remember that things are symbols, and that the thing symbolized is more important than the symbol itself.

His palfrey was as broun as is a berye.

And yet he hadde a thombe of gold.

And theron heng a brooch of gold ful sheene,On which ther was first write a crowned A,And after Amor vincit omnia.

Belief and reader absorption come in the details: An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand for everything. - Stephen King

Under ancient cypress trees, weeping dreams are harvested from sleep.

Vision of the night: toads plunge from silver waters.

The transposition of two Letters by five placeings will be sufficient for 32 Differences [and] by this Art a way is opened, whereby a man may expresse and signifie the intentions of his minde, at any distance of place, by objects … capable of a twofold difference onely,

When you have a garden full of pretty flowers, you don't demand of them, "What do you mean? What is your significance?" Dancers are just flowers, and flowers grow without any literal meaning, they are just beautiful. We're like flowers. A flower doesn't tell you a story. It's in itself a beautiful thing.

We have watered our horses in Helicon.

Some people believe eagles are messengers and that they appear when there's something we need to do in our lives.

Her grandfather's books [...] opened before Ada, a world whose colours were so dazzling that reality paled in comparison and faded away. Boris Godunov, Satan, Athalia, King Lear: they all spoke words charged with meaning; every syllable was inexpressively precious

Skip had loved that lighthouse—and all it symbolized. Light in the darkness. Guidance through turbulent waters. Salvation for the floundering. Hope for lost souls.

At this point Bellamy suddenly remembered another dream which at the time had made him smile. He dreamt he was a little tiny frightened animal called 'Spingle-spangle'. Later he did not smile. The little doomed creature was an image of what he most feared, insanity.

She dreamt she saw the Polish Rider passing slowly by and he was weeping and she called out to him, but he turned his head away. She dreamt that she was drowning in the pool of tears.

It seems to go beyond our personal junk circumstances; a brilliant metaphor for our times.