Symbolic Quotes

• Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change. It requires symbolic as well as practical action.

  Malcolm Fraser

  Heart, Spirit, Action

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  63 Copy quote

  Show source

• Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and how little we've grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it's not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably; happy birthday? No such thing.

  Jerry Seinfeld

  Birthday, Self, Years

  19 Copy quote

• If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag, wash it.

  Norman Thomas

  Flags, Gestures, Want

  38 Copy quote

• Tattoos are like stories - they're symbolic of the important moments in your life. Sitting down, talking about where you got each tattoo and what it symbolizes, is really beautiful.

  Pamela Anderson

  Tattoo, Beautiful, Talking

  19 Copy quote

• The symbolic view of things is a consequence of long absorption in images. Is sign language the real language of Paradise?

  Hugo Ball

  Real, Views, Long

  Hugo Ball (1974). “Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary”, p.104, Univ of California Press

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• I run because it's so symbolic of life. You have to drive yourself to overcome the obstacles. You might feel that you can't. But then you find your inner strength, and realize you're capable of so much more than you thought.

  Arthur Blank

  Running, Inner Strength, Might

  59 Copy quote

• Every phenomenon on earth is symbolic, and each symbol is an open gate through which the soul, if it is ready, can enter into the inner part of the world, where you and I and day and night are all one.

  Hermann Hesse

  Night, Soul, One Day

  14 Copy quote

• Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.

  Alex Haley

  Roots, People, My Family

  52 Copy quote

• The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age; and when this fact has been established, the remainder of the principles of mathematics consists of the analysis of Symbolic Logic itself.

  Bertrand Russell

  Discovery, Mathematical Logic, Age

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Principles of Mathematics”, p.5, Routledge

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the case of drama (stage, movies, television ), there appear to be people in almost every audience who never quite fully realize that a play is a set of fictional, symbolic representations. An actor is one who symbolizes other people, real or imagined. [...] Also some years ago it was reported that when Edward G. Robinson, who used to play gangster roles with extraordinary vividness, visited Chicago, local hoodlums would telephone him at his hotel to pay their professional respects.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Real, Drama, Years

  "Language in Thought and Action". Book by S. I. Hayakawa (p.27-28), 1991.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• We humans are an extremely important manifestation of the replication bomb, because it is through us - through our brains, our symbolic culture and our technology - that the explosion may proceed to the next stage and reverberate through deep space.

  Richard Dawkins

  Technology, Space, Brain

  Richard Dawkins (1995). “River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life”, Basic Books (AZ)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man's ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate.

  Paul Tillich

  Men, Able, Language

  Paul Tillich, F. Forrester Church (1999). “The Essential Tillich”, p.41, University of Chicago Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people.

  Ezra Pound

  People, Church, Literature

  86 Copy quote

• Aside from that reservation, a fictive tale even has the advantage of manifesting symbolic necessity more purely to the extent that we may believe its conception arbitrary.

  Jacques Lacan

  Believe, Arbitrary, May

  7 Copy quote

• Every gesture is a gesture from the blood, every expression a symbolic utterance... Everything is of the blood, of the senses.

  Henry Williamson

  Expression, Blood, Utterance

  16 Copy quote

• Art is the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling.

  Susanne Katherina Langer

  Art, Feelings, Creation

  6 Copy quote

• My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.

  John Dominic Crossan

  Smart, People, Dumb

  109 Copy quote

• The whole of life is symbolic because the whole of it has meaning.

  Boris Pasternak

  Life Is, Whole

  15 Copy quote

• Man is symbolic to the sun. The sun is dealing with a ball of fire and didn't go out yet. Me being symbolic to the sun, that's what keeps me going, that's like my hunger. That's like my fury, my self esteem. That's the elements within me that keep my body motionable. The fire is self esteem. Inner strength.

  Rakim

  Self Esteem, Men, Fire

  Source: hubpages.com

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our imagination and reasoning powers facilitate anxiety; the anxious feeling is precipitated not by an absolute impending threat-such as the worry about an examination, a speech, travel-but rather by the symbolic and often unconscious representations.

  Willard Gaylin

  Worry, Imagination, Anxiety

  8 Copy quote

• Sociology and anthropology are not disciplines which take easily to situations where people are able to live out their fantasies, not just in the symbolic action of ritual, but in the concrete theater of society at large.

  Jonathan Raban

  Discipline, People, Society

  Jonathan Raban (2017). “Soft City: Picador Classic”, p.53, Pan Macmillan

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• As for my feelings toward "Over the Rainbow", it's become part of my life. It is so symbolic of all dreams and wishes that I'm sure that's why people sometimes get tears in their eyes when they hear it.

  Judy Garland

  Dream, Eye, People

  "Over the Rainbow : The Wizard of Oz as a Secular Myth of America". Book by Paul Nathanson, 1991.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• So much of the literature we had to read for high school English class was filled with victimized, tragic, symbolic women who spurred the plot forward with their inevitable shunning/death/shunning-followed-by-pregnancy-followed-by-death timelines.

  Libba Bray

  Pregnancy, School, Class

  4 Copy quote

• For all their current prestige, Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers are still regarded in all but the most desperate districts of Gaza or Peshawar as romantics with little chance of more than symbolic victories, however bloody and brutal. That gives both the Middle East and the West a small and distant hope of security.

  James Buchan

  Suicide, Giving, Victory

  "Inside the mind of a terrorist". www.theguardian.com. September 16, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Know verily that the purpose underlying all these symbolic terms and abstruse allusions, which emanate from the revealers of Gods holy cause, hath been to test and prove the peoples of the world; that thereby the earth of the pure and illuminated hearts may be known from the perishable and barren soil.

  Bahá'u'lláh

  Heart, Purpose, World

  4 Copy quote