Symbolism Quotes - Page 4

• Postmodernism surely requires an even greater grasp of symbolism, as it's increasingly an art of gesture alone.

  Andrew Eldritch

  Art, Gestures, Postmodernism

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• Western people often see obscenity where there is only symbolism.

  Sir John Woodroffe

  People, Obscenity, Western

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• The language of art is powerful to those who understand it, and puzzling to those who do not. What we do know is that here was the modern human mind at work, spinning symbolism and abstraction in a way that only Homo sapiens is capable of doing.

  Richard Leakey

  Art, Powerful, Mind

  Richard Leakey (2008). “The Origin Of Humankind”, p.124, Hachette UK

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• In a painful time of my life I went often to a wooded hillside where May apples grew by the hundreds, and I thought the sourness of their fruit had a symbolism for me. Instead, I was to find both love and happiness soon thereafter. So to me [the May apple] is the mandrake, the love symbol, of the old dealers in plant restoratives.

  Hal Borland

  Apples, Happiness And Love, Painful Times

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• The fact that an African American sits in the White House at the helm of government in the United States of America on this 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation represents both phenomenal political symbolism and a victory of faith in democracy that should not be lost on any American.

  Aberjhani

  Government, White, America

  Aberjhani (2014). “Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry”, p.37, Lulu.com

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• Halt regarded him. He loved Horace like a younger brother. Even like a second son, after Will. He admired his skill with a sword and his courage in battle. But sometimes, just sometimes, he felt an overwhelming desire to ram the young warrior's head against a convenient tree. "You have no sense of drama or symbolism, do you?" he asked. "Huh?" replied Horace, not quite understanding. Halt looked around for a convenient tree. Luckily for Horace, there were none in sight.

  John Flanagan

  Brother, Drama, Warrior

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• The profuse phallic symbolism of chess provides some fantasy gratification of the homosexual wish, particularly the desire for mutual masturbation.

  Reuben Fine

  Wish, Desire, Chess

  Reuben Fine (1967). “The psychology of the chess player”

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• Mahatma Gandhi was a man of peace and non-violence and lived by the Hindu principle of ahimsa, action based on refusal to do harm. As his war-strewn presidency shows, George Bush knows nothing about ahimsa and non-violence. Bush should reconsider this cynical, disrespectful display of symbolism.

  Kevin Martin

  War, Men, Cynical

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• Though I like the various forms of football in the world, I don't think they begin to compare with these two great Anglo-Saxon ball games for sophisticated elegance and symbolism. Baseball and cricket are beautiful and highly stylized medieval war substitutes, chess made flesh, a mixture of proud chivalry and base - in both senses - greed. With football we are back to the monotonous clashing armor of the brontosaurus.

  John Fowles

  Beautiful, Football, Baseball

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• In poetic language, in which the sign as such takes on an autonomous value, this sound symbolism becomes an actual factor and creates a sort of accompaniment to the signified.

  Roman Jakobson

  Sound, Language, Poetic

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• The aim of jazz is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. 'Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,' the eunuchlike sound of the jazz band both mocks and proclaims, 'and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite.

  Theodor Adorno

  Giving Up, Sound, Band

  Theodor Adorno, Richard Leppert, Susan H. Gillespie (2002). “Essays on Music”, p.352, Univ of California Press

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• As I write in the book, I do not regret either of my votes for President [Barack] Obama, nor my support of him when he ran for the Senate before that. I get excited as I ever did when I see that black man on Air Force One. But I won't settle for symbolism, and our President's record should be open for analysis.

  Julianne Malveaux

  Regret, Book, Writing

  Source: www.theskanner.com

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• There's a lot of symbolism to your return. Is that going to be enough to reinvigorate the company with a sense of magic?

  Steve Jobs

  Business, Magic, Return

  "Steve Jobs: `There's Sanity Returning'". Bloomberg interview, www.bloomberg.com. May 23, 1998.

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• As to harmonizing the theory of evolution with the Biblical account of creation, I do not believe it can be done, and I do not see why it should be. The story of Genesis is beautiful, and profoundly significant as symbolism: there is no good reason to torture it into conformity with modern theory.

  Will Durant

  Beautiful, Believe, Biblical

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

  Paul Emsley

  Density, Bulls, Symbols

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• By the late Nineties, we had become a more visual nation. Big-money taste moved to global standards - new architecture, design and show-off contemporary art. The Sloane domestic aesthetic - symmetry, class symbolism and brown furniture - became as unfashionable as it had been hot in the early Eighties.

  Peter York

  Art, Class, Design

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• All things that are living are expression and therefore part of the inherent symbology of life. Art, therefore, that is encumbered with excessive symbolism is extraneous, and from my point of view, useless art. Anyone who understands life needs no handbook of poetry or philosophy to tell him what it is.

  Marsden Hartley

  Art, Philosophy, Views

  Marsden Hartley (2011). “Adventures in the Arts”, p.97, Hol Art Books

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• I don't really care where I work, actually, because you know making a movie is like living in movie world. There's such a secluded world, and the director is the king ruling the country, and everybody's building this little town to speak in symbolism.

  Franka Potente

  Country, Kings, Littles

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

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• Some distance away is a white azalea bush which stuns me with its stately beauty. This is pristine natural beauty. it is irrepressible, seeks no reward, and is without goal, a beauty derived neither from symbolism nor metaphor and needing neither analogies nor associations.

  Gao Xingjian

  Distance, White, Azaleas

  "Soul Mountain". Book by Gao Xingjian, 1989.

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• Many ideas have been transformed by adding one crucial adjective-women's bank, women's music, women's studies, women's caucus. That adjective did more than change a phrase. It implied a lot of new content: child care, flexible work hours, new standards of creditworthiness, new symbolism, new lyrics.

  Gloria Steinem

  Children, Ideas, Adjectives

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• The pain is not great. But the symbolism is disagreeable.

  Dave Eggers

  Pain, Disagreeable

  Dave Eggers (2007). “What Is the What”, p.50, Vintage

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• My work is a fusion of personal experiences and influences - moody atmospheres, victorian-inspired couture, and timeless elements all laced with clandestine symbolism. The figures I paint exist in their own esoteric realm and time, and each painting offers a glimpse into their anomalous world.

  Lori Earley

  Atmosphere, Fusion, Glimpse

  Artist Statement, www.loriearley.com.

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• God Bless America started to become an almost ritualistic incantation at the end of political speeches really with Ronald Reagan. It appears occasionally before, but it was not that common. And of course since it was a song that wasn't written by Irving Berlin until the 20th century (laughter), none of the 19th century presidents said God Bless America at the end of speeches, either. I think that the symbolism which suggests that everybody is religious and that even presidents who believe in church and state feel obliged to do this.

  Susan Jacoby

  Song, Religious, Laughter

  "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

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• I think as actors we need to close read scripts and we need to fully understand the intricacies of dialogue as well as the symbolisms of what the actor wears and what they hold in their hand because that only adds more layers to the character.

  Masiela Lusha

  Character, Thinking, Hands

  Source: thecelebritycafe.com

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• I think about the kinds of gardens that Queen Elizabeth put up. She made gardens in the shape of an "E," for Elizabeth, just one more way in which she used symbolism to solidify her reign: appearing as the Virgin Queen, for example, or wearing a dress embroidered with eyes and ears to indicate that she knew all that was going on in her castle; she had spies.

  Martha Ronk

  Queens, Eye, Garden

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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