Metaphor Quotes - Page 5

• The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.

  Paul Valery

  Truth, Honesty, Spring

  "Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vinci". Book by Paul Valery, 1895.

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• The entire universe is nothing but a great metaphor.

  Simone Weil

  Philosophical, Universe

  Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.98, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Often in winter the end of the day is like the final metaphor in a poem celebrating death: there is no way out.

  Agustin Gomez-Arcos

  Death, Winter, The End Of The Day

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• If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.

  Octavio Paz

  Relationship, Couple, Excellence

  Octavio Paz (1973). “Alternating Current”, p.53, Arcade Publishing

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• Censorship is the mother of metaphor.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Mother, Censorship

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• There are metaphors more real than the people who walk in the street.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Real, People, Walks

  Fernando Pessoa (1996). “The Book of Disquietude: By Bernardo Soares, Assistant Bookkeeper in the City of Lisbon”

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• Metaphor is not, and never has been, a mere literary term. It is an event.

  Mary Ruefle

  Events, Term, Mere

  Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.131, Wave Books

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• Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.

  Roberto Bolano

  Sea, Water, Way

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• The mind is a metaphor of the world of objects.

  Pierre Bourdieu

  Mind, World, Objects

  Pierre Bourdieu (1977). “Equisse D'une Théorie de la Pratique”, p.91, Cambridge University Press

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• To an artist a metaphor is as real as a dollar.

  Tom Robbins

  Real, Artist, Dollars

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Another Roadside Attraction”, p.345, Bantam

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• Because you continue to inhabit and believe your metaphors, you cannot see what is true.

  William P. Young

  Believe

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• Then I strip the pants away from each leg, like peeling a banana. That's it, the perfect metaphor: peeling a banana.

  Rick Yancey

  Perfect, Legs, Pants

  Rick Yancey (2013). “The 5th Wave”, p.231, Penguin UK

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• If I were to give off-the-cuff advice to anyone trying to institute change, I would say, "How clear is the metaphor?"

  Warren G. Bennis

  Change, Giving, Advice

  "Leadership: Sad Facts and Silver Linings" by Thomas J. Peters, hbr.org. December 2001.

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• Be passive. In your passivity, God comes. Be feminine. In your femininity, God comes. Have you not watched it? Buddha looks very feminine, Krishna looks very feminine. Why? - because it is simply a metaphor. They have been depicted as feminine, graceful, to show that that is their inner quality - receptivity. When you are doing something you are being aggressive. When you are not doing anything you are non-aggressive. And God cannot be conquered; you can only allow him to conquer you.

  Rajneesh

  Quality, Looks, Conquer

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• I would say to those who don't like the metaphor This is reality.

  Eliot Spitzer

  Reality

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• Their scrambled attention spans struck me as a metaphor for the way we get our doses of reality these days.

  Bill Griffith

  Reality, Attention, Way

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• It is by metaphor that language grows.

  Julian Jaynes

  Language, Grows

  Julian Jaynes (2000). “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”, p.59, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• What we know for sure is that metaphor is the raw uranium of poetry, and that an urge to say that one thing is like something else is one of the earliest markers of the poetic spirit, the nascent poet.

  Tony Hoagland

  Spirit, Poetic, Like Something

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• Metaphor is awkward, but emotion, by its nature, leaves you no more scalable approach.

  Rachel Hartman

  Awkward, Emotion, Approach

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• I think that metaphor really is a key to explaining thought and language. The human mind comes equipped with an ability to penetrate the cladding of sensory appearance and discern the abstract construction underneath - not always on demand, and not infallibly, but often enough and insightfully enough to shape the human condition. Our powers of analogy allow us to apply ancient neural structures to newfound subject matter, to discover hidden laws and systems in nature, and not least, to amplify the expressive power of language itself.

  Steven Pinker

  Thinking, Law, Keys

  Steven Pinker (2007). “The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature”, p.282, Penguin

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• Metaphor is the energy charge that leaps between images, revealing their connections.

  Robin Morgan

  Energy, Connections, Revealing

  Robin Morgan (2014). “The Anatomy of Freedom: Feminism in Four Dimensions”, p.270, Open Road Media

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• Marathoning is a metaphor for life, so there are a lot of parallels you can draw. I tell people to follow your dream, follow your heart, follow your passion, run your own race and believe in yourself. I think anybody who wants to succeed has to have passion. My love for this sport, you can't instill it in someone else.

  Joan Benoit

  Love, Life, Motivational

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• To Forget Venice is a tour de force of ventriloquism. Elegant, contemporary, and wry, the voice at its center is also capable of disarming flights of imagination as it enters and inhabits other lives across time and gender. The glittering, fetid city emerges as a complex metaphor for the human heart’s simultaneous tenderness and capacity for cruelty, its ‘silver glow / a local specialty: filth / disguised as ornament.’ This Venice is unforgettable.

  Chase Twichell

  Heart, Venice, Cities

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• Highly creative people have a gift for connecting supposedly unrelated elements and ideas. They cross borders without regard for customs posts or No Trespassing signs. They throw suspension bridges across great distances. These elegant and unexpected combinations flow together beautifully in the twilight zone, where metaphor and resemblance rules in place of logic and classification.

  Robert Moss

  Distance, Twilight, Bridges

  Robert Moss (2010). “Dreamgates: Exploring the Worlds of Soul, Imagination, and Life Beyond Death”, p.158, New World Library

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• Heart and Brain are the two lords of life. In the metaphors of ordinary speech and in the stricter language of science, we use these terms to indicate two central powers, from which all motives radiate, to which all influences converge.

  George Henry Lewes

  Life, Heart, Science

  "The Heart and the Brain". "Catholic world", Volume 1, Issue 5, August 1865.

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