Figures Of Speech Quotes

• If the Prodigal Son's a parable, and if Adam and Eve are metaphors, then maybe God is just figure of speech.

  Dan Barker

  Son, Atheism, Speech

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• Language becomes a prison house only poets can escape...if we do not reject any strict distinctions between ordinary usage and figures of speech.

  Arthur Quinn

  House, Speech, Ordinary

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• A figure of speech is a shifty thing; it can be twisted or it can be straight.

  Salman Rushdie

  Speech, Twisted, Figures

  Salman Rushdie (1990). “Haroun and the Sea of Stories”, Penguin Books

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• Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years, it's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment, and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name. [But] it's time to expand and move on.

  Mos Def

  Moving, Years, Names

  "Mos Def to change his name in 2012" by Sean Michaels, www.theguardian.com. September 8, 2011.

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• Never use a long word where a short one will do.

  George Orwell

  Long, Use, Simile

  George Orwell (1961). “Collected essays”

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• My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application-not far far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech-and learn them so well that words become works.

  Seneca the Younger

  Teaching, Writing, Happy Life

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• Silence is a figure of speech, unanswerable, short, cold, but terribly severe.

  Theodore Parker

  Silence, Speech, Cold

  Theodore Parker (1867). “The Collected Works of Theodore Parker: Sermons. Prayers”, p.50

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• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

  George Orwell

  Cutting, Thinking, Passive Voice

  George Orwell (1953). “Shooting an Elephant: And Other Essays”

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• ...a figure of speech can often get into a crack too small for a definition.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Cracks, Speech, Definitions

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

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• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out

  George Orwell

  Cutting, Simile, Ifs

  George Orwell (2013). “Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Annotated Edition”, p.332, Penguin UK

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• 'Studying the Way' is just a figure of speech, a method of arousing people's interest in the early stages of their development. In fact, the Way is not something which can be studied. Study leads to the retention of concepts, and so the Way is entirely misunderstood

  Huangbo Xiyun

  People, Misunderstood, Development

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• We have to look at the figures of speech a writer uses, his images and symbols, to realize that underneath all the complexity of human life that uneasy stare at an alien nature is still haunting us, and the problem of surmounting it still with us.

  Northrop Frye

  Writing, Looks, Use

  Northrop Frye (1964). “The Educated Imagination”, p.56, Indiana University Press

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• Metaphor is one of a group of problem-solving medicines known as figures of speech which are normally used to treat literal thinking and other diseases.

  Grant Morrison

  Thinking, Medicine, Groups

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• Attitudes are the real figures of speech.

  Edwin H Friedman

  Attitude, Real, Speech

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• She wanted more, more slang, more figures of speech, the bee's knees, the cats pajamas, horse of a different color, dog-tired, she wanted to talk like she was born here, like she never came from anywhere else

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Dog, Horse, Tired

  Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”, p.108, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

  George Orwell

  Speech, Use, Metaphor

  George Orwell (1968). “The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: In front of your nose, 1945-1950”

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• I am not very conscious of the figures of speech that I use.

  Mick Jagger

  Use, Speech, Conscious

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• Writing for me is a dragnet that carries everything away with it: expressions and figures of speech, postures, feelings, thoughts, troubles. In short, the lives of others.

  Elena Ferrante

  Writing, Expression, Feelings

  "Elena Ferrante: 'Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing'". Interview with Deborah Orr, www.theguardian.com. February 19, 2016.

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• The artist does not exist except as a personification, a figure of speech that represents the sum total of art itself. It is painting that is the genius of the painter, poetry of the poet, and a person is a creative artist to the extent that he participates in that genius.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Art, Creative, Doe

  Harold Rosenberg (1983). “The De-Definition of Art”, p.13, University of Chicago Press

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• Irony is Fate's most common figure of speech.

  Trevanian

  Fate, Ironic, Speech

  Trevanian (2005). “Shibumi: A Novel”, p.106, Broadway Books

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• I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.

  Pope Francis

  Literary Genre, Speech, Definitions

  Pope Francis (2014). “My Door Is Always Open: A Conversation on Faith, Hope and the Church in a Time of Change”, p.17, A&C Black

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• It is no strain of metaphor to say that the love of God and the wrath of God are the same thing, described from opposite points of view. How we shall experience it depends upon the way we shall come up against it: God does not change; it is man's moral state that changes. The wrath of God is a figure of speech to denote God's unchanging opposition to sin; it is His righteous love operating to destroy evil. It is not evil that will have the last word, but good; not sorrow, but joy; not hate, but love.

  Reginald John Campbell

  Love, Hate, Men

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• We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

  Winston Churchill

  Inspirational, Strength, Beach

  Hansard 4 June 1940, col. 796

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• It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly. It is fatal for a woman to lay the least stress on any grievance; to plead even with justice any cause; in any way to speak consciously as a woman. And fatal is no figure of speech; for anything written with that conscious bias is doomed to death. It ceases to be fertilized.

  Virginia Woolf

  Stress, Simple, Men

  Virginia Woolf, Morag Shiach (1998). “A Room of One's Own: And, Three Guineas”, p.136

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• You must be Pain in the Nick.” – Dev “Huh?” – Nick “Don’t wet your pets. Just a figure of speech. Your mom’s been talking about you all day, boy. You are her favorite topic.” – Dev “Well, I try hard not to be her favorite hemorrhoid.” – Nick

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Mom, Pain, Boys

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