Quotes About Symbols

The universe, Galileo wrote, "is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single world of it." Without mathematics, he concluded, "one wanders about in a dark labyrinth"—or what Plato might have called a cave.

Legends, myths, miracles, and symbols: a far cry from the practical and precise hardheaded world Scotland and the Scots had inhabited since the Act of Union.

The fancy that sensations are symbols and not realities hovered in his mind, and led him to speculate as to whether they could not actually be transmuted one into another.

In physics we have outgrown archer and apple-pie definitions of the fundamental symbols. To a request to explain what an electron really is supposed to be we can only answer, "It is part of the A B C of physics". The external world of physics has thus become a world of shadows. In removing our illusions we have removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions.

God, it would seem, did not communicate to His people an explicit and systematic form of doctrine; instead, He instructed them, mainly, through His providential dealings and by means of types and symbols. Once this is clearly grasped by us it gives new interest to the Old Testament scriptures.

Human communication, 'as the saying goes, is a clash of symbols' it covers a multitude of signs. But it is more than media and messages, information and persuasion; it also meets a deeper need and serves a higher purpose. Whether clear or garbled, tumultuous or silent, deliberate or fatally inadvertent, communication is the ground of meeting and the foundation of community. It is, in short, the essential human connection.

Sabriel sentiu o turbilhão familiar de energia e a sensação de cair numa galáxia infindável de estrelas. Mas, aqui, as estrelas eram os símbolos da Carta, ligados numa dança sem princípio nem fim, mas que continha e descrevia o mundo no seu movimento. Sabriel conhecia apenas uma pequena fração dos símbolos, mas sabia o que dançavam e sentiu a pureza da Carta a banhá-la.

Gifts are visual symbols of love.

Certain mystes aver that the real world has been constructed by the human mind, since our ways are governed by the artificial categories into which we place essentially undifferentiated things, things weaker than our words for them. [...] We believe we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges.

It is not well to spend one's symbols improvidently.

into my pocket. We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges.

Minds that have been unhinged from their old faith and love, have perhaps sought this Lethean influence of exile, in which the past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no memories.

The lines and lights of the human countenance are like other symbols,–not always easy to read without a key.

But it is really impossible to decide this question by a glance at his person; the lines and lights of the human countenance are like other symbols,–not always easy to read without a key. On an a priori view of Wakem's aquiline nose, which offended Mr. Tulliver, there was not more rascality than in the shape of his stiff shirt-collar, though this too along with his nose, might have become fraught with damnatory meaning when once the rascality was ascertained.

In Bulgaria, they use the Cyrillic alphabet, which is completely different from ours. You can't sound the words out, so you can't read street signs or packages in the grocery store! You have to rely on pictures and guesses.

Emblems fulfill a deep, instinctive need because they say something about us. Abraham Maslow calls this "esteem": the need to feel important, respected, and recognized as an achiever. We satisfy this need by communicating our value to the world around us.

By developing symbols of value, groups can strengthen participation and commitment. People eagerly work to acquire and show off emblems. So it only makes sense that companies should develop emblems of value. Prestigious groups monitor access to remain sought-after, rare, and valuable. Insider brands usually control how many people get access to the brand; otherwise, oversaturation cheapens status and destroys value.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

In the post-Cold War world flags count and so do other symbols of cultural identity, including crosses, crescents, and even head coverings, because culture counts, and cultural identity is what is most meaningful to most people.

An individual, a thing apart from its environment, and apart from all things in that environment; an individual was a type of thing for which symbols were inadequate, and so names were invented . I am invented. I am not a round warm blue room. I am someone in that room; I am—

An individual, a thing apart from its environment, and apart from all things in that environment; an individual was a type of thing for which symbols were inadequate, and so names were invented. I am invented.

The imagination… that reconciling and mediatory power, which incorporating the reason in images of the sense and organizing (as it were) the flux of the senses by the permanence and self-circling energies of the reason, gives birth to a system of symbols, harmonious in themselves, and consubstantial with the truths of which they are the conductors.

You couldn't see the soldiers as people. They were icons.

every church can treat each discipleship class and each worship service as an opportunity for continual rehearsal of what the words, stories, symbols, rituals, and experiences in the Christian community mean.