Quotes About Symbolism

Every time I see a cardinal, I know my grandmother is with me. This regal, red bird was Grandma's favorite.

What is a clock? Something agreed upon and arbitrarily imposed upon us. Standard time. Not true time. Symbolizing the whole standardization of our lives.

Part of the American myth is that people who are handed the skin of a dead sheep at graduating time think that it will keep their minds alive forever.

The sexual is part of everything, and it's highly formalized. I hadn't done figure for a long time. And I thought to myself, "Why not the erotic figure?"

I have painted and drawn bulls for some time because of their density and all the symbolism they carry.

Clock measurement is not time itself. In fact, so opposed are they that one could argue the clock is not a synonym, but the opposite of time.

Go, lovely rose, Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be.

The test of a true myth is that each time you return to it, new insights and interpretations arise.

Olive's tattoo marked the first stage of her transformation into a Mohave. She was now visually integrated into the tribe and physically traceable as a Mohave because of it.

Standing now astride two cultures, Olive had unwittingly made history: she was the first known tattooed white female in the United States.

S'enrhumer est à Rome un privilège d'empereur

Roses are red. Blood is too…

The hands are the heart's messengers.

It's a long time ago that I lost my faith in Mary, a long time since she was the fulcrum of the scheme of salvation I then believed in, alongside Jesus the chief redeemer. But I find that the symbolism of mercy and love which her figure has traditionally expressed has migrated and now shapes secular imagery and events; Catholic worship and moral teaching no longer monopolize it or control its significance.

ciertas cosas, como la casquette de Charles, son más locuaces y trascendentes que sus dueños, y nos revelan, mejor que las palabras y los actos de aquéllos, la personalidad del amo: su estatuto social, su economía, sus costumbres, sus aspiraciones, su imaginación, su sentido artístico, sus creencias.

Reading ancient myths and fairy tales can be very helpful because these stories came spontaneously from people who had not studied psychology. The stories came straight out of their unconscious and, therefore, show us how the unconscious works unimpeded by conscious intervention. The images are clear and stark. For those of us who are interested in why we do what we do when we want to do the opposite, the stories are gold mines of information.

Carnations) The only flower that, when given to someone, is marginally superior to dead ones.

The word metaphor means carrying something from one place to another, and it comes from the Greek words meta (which means from one place to another) and ferein (which means to carry), and it is when you describe something by using a word for something that it isn't. This means that the word metaphor is a metaphor.

The unfolding scene was a semiotician's fantasia.

Why do people resist [engines, bridges, and cities] so? They are symbols and products of the imagination, which is the force that ensures justice and historical momentum in an imperfect world, because without imagination we would not have the wherewithal to challenge certainty, and we could never rise above ourselves.

In Middle English, cod meant a bag or a sack, or by inference, a scrotum, which is why the outrageous purse that sixteenth-century men wore at their crotch to give the appearance of enormous and decorative genitals was called a codpiece.

I was born with the ability to see in metaphor.

I never knew. I never knew as I washed, and the blood streaked, faded, and finally disappeared, whether I'd purified myself or ruined the blood sign of the passover.

And now when I sway to a fitful wind, alone and listing, I will think, maple key. When I see a photograph of earth from space, the planet so startlingly painterly and hung, I will think, maple key. When I shake your hand or meet your eyes I will think, two maple keys. If I am a maple key falling, at least I can twirl.