Quotes About Symbolism

The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment.

In a single figure a symbol may both reveal and conceal, for to the wise the subject of the symbol is obvious, while to the ignorant the figure remains inscrutable.

seems incredible to them that metals and characters

The mystery of the evergreen marking the grave of the dead sun god is also perpetuated in the Christmas tree.

When the human race learns to read the language of symbolism, a great veil will fall from the eyes of men. They shall then know truth and, more than that, they shall realize that from the beginning truth has been in the world unrecognized, save by a small but gradually increasing number appointed by the Lords of the Dawn as ministers to the needs of human creatures struggling co regain their consciousness of divinity.

Losing baby teeth were a part and parcel of one's life — a symbol of growing up, and it is the tooth-fairy that makes this otherwise dreaded and painful process an exciting one — something to look forward to.

At the king's landing stage, the heads of stone beasts swim in the water, and so do their own shapes, the shapes of gentleman, their forms broken by ripples, and the everted queen flickering like a flame in a glass; around them, the dance of mild afternoon sunshine, and a flood of birdsong.

What better model of a synthesis than a nocturnal dream? Dreams simplify, don't they?

I think cinema is closer to allegories than to reality. It's closer to our dreams.

La lengua de las mariposas es una tronca enroscada como un muelle de reloj. Si hay una flor que la atrae, la desenrolla y la mete en el cáliz para chupar. Cuando lleváis el dedo humedecido a un tarro de azúcar, ¿a qué sentís ya el dulce en la boca como si la yema fuese la punta de la lengua? Pues así es la lengua de la mariposa.

María Luisa Bombal

lo que los occidentales llaman "arte" es eminentemente funcional; no representa, encarna.

Ölen bir anne, yanan bir kitapl?kt?r.

through which the king, wearing his crown, was presented to his people as a divinely appointed figure of power.

The reality that must be expressed resides, I now realised, not in the appearance of the subject but in the degree of penetration of that intuition to a depth where that appearance matters little, as symbolised by the sound of the spoon upon the plate, the stiffness of the table-napkin, which were more precious for my spiritual renewal than many humanitarian, patriotic, international conversations. More style, I had heard said in those days, more literature of life.

Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man And downward fish

It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

The ants were busy on the ground, big black ones with shiny bodies and the little dusty quick ants. Kino watched with the detachment of God while a dusty ant frantically tried to escape the sand trap an ant lion had dug for him. He watched the ants moving, a little column of them near to his foot, and he put his foot in their path. Then the column climbed over his instep and continued on its way, and Kino left his foot there and watched them move over it.

Let's say that when I was a little baby, and all my bones soft and malleable, I was put in a small Episcopal cruciform box and so took my shape. Then, when I broke out of the box, the way a baby chick escapes an egg, is it strange that I had the shape of a cross? Have you ever noticed that chickens are roughly egg-shaped?

And he saw the right evening star reflected in her eyes, and he saw the black cloud reflected in her eyes.

The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness.

The deep-laden boats pull in against the coast where the canneries dip their tails into the bay. The figure is advisedly chosen, for if the canneries dipped their mouths into the bay the canned sardines which emerge from the other end would be metaphorically, at least, even more horrifying.

temptations of wealth, power, and prestige. But this final novel defies categories. If it's a parable of corruption and redemption, as Steinbeck suggests in his epigraph, it's also a lesson in Darwinian survival. The novel insists on a symbolic and highly ironic framework—the first half takes place on Easter weekend in April 1960 and the second on the Fourth of July weekend that same year. Yet the book is also realistic, set in Steinbeck's own

Always the padre told us that the wine is the blood of Christ and it's Him you are drinking from the cup, His life on your lips. But the padre was wrong - blood is not life, water is