#symbols

If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine. ↗

— Diana Wynne Jones

#although #blurred #clear #colour #could

A common allegiance to form of expression that is identified with no single national unit is likely to prove one of the most potent symbols of the freedom of the human spirit that the world has yet known. ↗

— Edward Sapir

#common #expression #form #freedom #human

The soul... may have many symbols with which it reaches toward God. ↗

— Anya Seton

#many #may #reaches #soul #symbols

I believe in status symbols. ↗

— Brooks Stevens

#i #i believe #i believe in #status #symbols

This year, as we celebrate the 230th anniversary of America's independence, please remember the symbols that are sacred to this country. Fly Old Glory high and show your respect and admiration for this great nation and the values we hold dear. ↗

— Kenny Marchant

#america #anniversary #celebrate #country #dear

We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it's a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it. ↗

— Andrei Tarkovsky

#symbols #description

I paint to evoke a changing language of symbols, a language with which to remark upon the qualities of our mysterious capacities which direct us toward ultimate reality. ↗

— Morris Graves

#changing #direct #evoke #i #language

If all things were made through Him, clearly so must the splendid revelations have been which were made to the fathers and prophets, and became to them the symbols of the sacred mysteries of religion. ↗

— Origen

#became #been #clearly #fathers #him

If Thecla had symbolized love of which I felt myself undeserving, as I know now that she did, then did her symbolic force disappear when I locked the door of her cell behind me? That would be like saying that the writing of this book, over which I have labored for so many watches, will vanish in a blur of vermillion when I close it for the last time and dispatch it to the eternal library maintained by the old Ultan. The great question then, that I pondered as I watched the floating island with longing eyes and chafed at my bonds and cursed the hetman in my heart, is that of determining what these symbols mean in and of themselves. We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last. ↗

— Gene Wolfe

#symbols #text #love

I came hoping to see those eyes, but instead I return with my heart, leaving behind only flowers. ↗

— Kim Dong Hwa

#flowers #love #symbols #unrequited-love #unrequited-love