Symbols Quotes - Page 20

• And the joys I've felt have not always been joyous. I could have lived differently. When I was your age, my grandfather bought me a ruby bracelet. It as too big for me an would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler make that way. Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the point of everything I have been trying to say. IF I were to give a bracelet to you, now, I would measure your wrist twice

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Giving, Joy, Grandfather

  7 Copy quote

• There is a thinking in primordial images, in symbols which are older than the historical man, which are inborn in him from the earliest times, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. It is only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them.

  Carl Jung

  Men, Thinking, Historical

  Carl Gustav Jung (1960). “The structure and dynamics of the psyche”

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols; vagabond-language scrawled on gate-posts and paving-stones along the weary road that others have tramped before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Love, Disappointment, Spring

  "Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder". Book by Evelyn Waugh, 1945.

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• The road now stretched across open country, and it occured to me - not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience - that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good. It was a pleasant diaphragmal melting, with elements of diffused tactility, all this enhanced by the thought that nothing could be nearer to the elimination of basic physical laws than deliberately driving on the wrong site of the road.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Country, Law, Feelings

  7 Copy quote

• The question occurred to me: Well, if that's so, if the Divine is ultimately formless and genderless, what's the big deal? Why all this bother? The bother is because we have no other way of speaking about the Absolute. We need forms and images. Without them we have no way of relating to the Divine. Symbol and image create a universal spiritual language. It's the language the soul understands.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Spiritual, Soul, Needs

  4 Copy quote

• Elizabeth A. Johnson explains that including divine female symbols and images not only challenges the dominance of male images but also calls into question the structure of patriarchy itself.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Challenges, Males, Female

  4 Copy quote

• Books, books, books in all their aspects, in form and spirit, their physical selves and what reading releases from their hieroglyphic pages, in their sight and smell, in their touch and feel to the questing hand, and in the intellectual music which they sing to the thoughtful brain and loving heart, books are to me the best of all symbols, the realest of all reality.

  Lawrence Clark Powell

  Book, Reading, Heart

  Lawrence Clark Powell (1985). “Books are basic: the essential Lawrence Clark Powell”, Univ of Arizona Pr

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• we must not blame our poor symbols if they take forms that seem trivial to us, or absurd, ... however paltry they may be; the nature of our life alone has determined their forms.

  Angela Carter

  May, Determined, Blame

  Angela Carter (1977). “The Passion of New Eve”, Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are friends with whom we share neither interests nor any particular experiences, friends with whom we never correspond, whom we seldom meet and then only by chance, but whose existence nonetheless has for us a special if uncanny meaning. For me the Eiffel Tower is just such a friend, and not merely because it happens to be the symbol of a city, for Paris leaves me neither hot nor cold. I first became aware of this attachment of mine when reading in the paper about plans for its demolition, the mere thought of which filled me with alarm.

  Stanislaw Lem

  Reading, Attachment, Cities

  Stanislaw Lem (1984). “The Chain of Chance”, p.136, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are symbolic dreams-- dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities -- realities that symbolize a dream. Symbols are what you might call the honorary town councillors of the worm universe. In the worm universe, there is nothing unusual about a dairy cow seeking a pair of pliers. A cow is bound to get her pliers sometime. It has nothing to do with me.

  Haruki Murakami

  Dream, Reality, Pliers

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jul 25, 2014

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I will be the Vampire Lestat for all to see. A symbol, a freak of nature - something loved, something despised all of those things. I tell you I can't give it up. I can't miss. And quite frankly I am not in the least afraid." - Lestat, The Vampire Lestat, p. 532

  Anne Rice

  Giving, Missing, Vampire

  52 Copy quote

• Nature is a temple, where the living Columns sometimes breathe confusing speech; Man walks within these groves of symbols, each Of which regards him as a kindred thing.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Men, Confusing, Speech

  Charles Baudelaire, James N McGowan (2008). “The Flowers of Evil”, p.19, Oxford Paperbacks

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me, asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books.

  Alex Haley

  Book, College, Asking Questions

  9 Copy quote

• Clearly, mythology is no toy for children. Nor is it a matter of archaic, merely scholarly concern, of no moment to modern men of action. For its symbols (whether in the tangible form of images or in the abstract form of ideas) touch and release the deepest centers of motivation, moving literate and illiterate alike, moving mobs, moving civilizations.

  Joseph Campbell

  Inspirational, Children, Motivation

  Joseph Campbell (1976). “The Masks of God: Primitive mythology”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• However, displayed right alongside all the Confederate flag paraphernalia is a bunch of American flag merch – American flag place mats, patriotic “body crystals,” flag stickers you attach to your skin. Personally, I’m small-minded and literal enough that I see the two symbols as contradictory, especially in a time of war. But I fear that the consumer who buys a Confederate flag coffee cup, which she will then put on her American flag place mat, is the sort of sophisticated thinker who is open-minded enough that she is capable of hating blacks and Arabs at the same time.

  Sarah Vowell

  Hate, War, Coffee

  9 Copy quote

• It is an excellent habit to look at things as so many symbols.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Looks, Habit, Excellent

  5 Copy quote

• Instead of the word 'love' there was an enormous heart, a symbol sometimes used by people who have trouble figuring out the difference between words and shapes.

  Daniel Handler

  Heart, Differences, People

  9 Copy quote

• As many know, the Chinese expression for "crisis" consists of two characters side by side. The first is the symbol for "danger," the second the symbol for "opportunity."

  Al Gore

  Character, Opportunity, Expression

  Al Gore (2006). “An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It”, p.10, Rodale

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Patriotic, Thoughtful, Government

  Henry Ward Beecher (1887). “Patriotic Addresses in America and England from 1850 to 1885, on Slavery, the Civil War and the Development of Civil Liberty in the United States”

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...I also know - and this won't alter the course of history or your personal view of me - that you will die with a clenched fist and a tense jaw, the epitome of hatred and struggle, because you are not a symbol (some inanimate example) but a genuine member of the society to be destroyed; the spirit of the beehive speaks through your mouth and motivates your actions. You are as useful as I am, but you are not aware of how useful your contribution is to the society that sacrifices you.

  Che Guevara

  Struggle, Sacrifice, Views

  Che Guevara, Ernesto Guevara (2009). “Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara”, p.16, Ocean Press

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everything becomes symbol and irony when you've been betrayed

  Jay McInerney

  Betrayed, Irony

  Jay McInerney (2014). “Bright Lights, Big City”, p.54, A&C Black

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Mark Helprin

  Imperfect World, Bridges, Cities

  Mark Helprin (1983). “Winter's Tale”, p.555, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• But whether I become a believer or remain an agnostic, my belief or disbelief must derive its source from within, not from without. I, myself, must create its symbols. The transcendental is that which produces its own form. I will never discover its secret if I do not find it in my own heart; if I do not possess it already I shall never be able to acquire it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Heart, Secret, Able

  Oscar Wilde, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Lady Wilde, Henry Zick (1909). “The Complete Writings of Oscar Wilde: What never dies”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Another dream. Another long-distance call on my phantom party line. No wonder i had steadfastly refused to have dreams for most of my life. So stupid; such pointless, obvious symbols. Totally uncontrollable anxiety soup, hateful, blatant nonsense.

  Jeff Lindsay

  Dream, Distance, Stupid

  Jeff Lindsay (2005). “Darkly Dreaming Dexter”, p.121, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• These beings have no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons, of satisfying their passions, of feeling and thinking.... Contrary to what many thoughtless people seem to believe, dandyism is not even an excessive delight in clothes and material elegance. For the perfect dandy, these things are no more than the symbol of the aristocratic superiority of his mind.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Believe, Passion, Thinking

  14 Copy quote