Metaphorical Quotes

• Our tools are extensions of our purposes, and so we find it natural to make metaphorical attributions of intentionality to them; but I take it no philosophical ice is cut by such examples.

  John Searle

  Philosophical, Cutting, Ice

  "Minds, Brains and Programs". Book by John Searle, 1980.

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• Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.

  George Lakoff

  Thinking, People, Monday Morning

  George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (2008). “Metaphors We Live By”, p.3, University of Chicago Press

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• Metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.

  George Lakoff

  Thinking, Everyday, Ordinary

  George Lakoff, Mark Johnson (2008). “Metaphors We Live By”, p.3, University of Chicago Press

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• Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.

  Milan Kundera

  Love, Dream, Memories

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• Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor

  Milan Kundera

  Love Is, Unbearable Lightness Of Being, Metaphor

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• Language operates between literal and metaphorical signification

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Language, Literal

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.61, Univ of California Press

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• But it then very soon became clear that the response of a war against terrorism, initially conceived of in a metaphorical sense, began to be taken increasingly seriously and came to entail waging a real war.

  Ulrich Beck

  Real, War, Taken

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• What I love about the theatre is that it's always metaphorical. It's like going back to being a kid again, and we're all pretending in a room. Sometimes, when the pretending really works, I find it much, much more moving than something on film.

  Mark Haddon

  Moving, Kids, Theatre

  "Mark Haddon: 'What I love about theatre is that it's like being a kid again'". Interview with Carole Cadwalladr, www.theguardian.com. March 27, 2010.

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• Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.

  Leonard Bernstein

  Names, Reaching, Music Is

  Leonard Bernstein (1976). “The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard”, p.140, Harvard University Press

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• In India nearly everybody spoke metaphorically except the English who spoke bluntly and could make their most transparent lies look honest as a consequence; whereas any truth contained in these metaphorical rigmaroles was so deviously presented that it looked devious itself.

  Paul Scott

  Lying, India, Looks

  Paul Scott (2011). “The Raj Quartet, Volume 2: The Day of the Scorpion”, p.102, University of Chicago Press

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• A great brand is a story that’s never completely told. A brand is a metaphorical story that connects with something very deep – a fundamental appreciation of mythology. Stories create the emotional context people need to locate themselves in a larger experience.

  Scott Bedbury

  Inspirational, Appreciation, Business

  "If the name fits ....", www.theguardian.com. January 7, 2001.

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• On the whole, we're a murderous race. According to Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the first metaphorical cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never saw it coming. As I opened the door to my apartment, I was filled with a sense of empathic sympathy and intuitive understanding. For freaking Cain.

  Jim Butcher

  Brother, Children, Jealous

  Jim Butcher (2006). “Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files”, p.16, Penguin

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• Years later, I found myself running
  a network television division and then a
  movie studio and now an entire entertainment
  company. But, much of the success I've achieved
  can be traced to the direct and metaphorical
  lessons I learned in building those campfires.
  I can hardly think of an aspect of my life
  that wasn't positively affected by my camping
  experience.

  Michael Eisner

  Running, Thinking, Years

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• Cyberspace' is a metaphorical idea which is supposed to be the space where your consciousness is located when you're using computer technology on the Internet, for example, and I'm not entirely sure it's such a useful term, but I think that's what most people mean by it.

  Neil Postman

  Mean, Technology, Thinking

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• Every religion, every mythology is true in this sense: It is true as metaphorical of the human and cosmic mystery.

  Joseph Campbell

  Religion, Mystery, Mythology

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• By bringing together what we know and what we don't know through analogy, metaphorical thinking strikes the spark that ignites discovery.

  James Geary

  Thinking, Discovery, Together

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• I find it interesting that authors of fantasy and science fiction novels are rarely asked if their books are based on their personal experiences, because all writing is based on personal experience. I may not have gone on an epic quest through a haunted forest, but the feelings in my books are often based on feelings I've had. Real-life events, in fantasy and science fiction, can take on metaphorical significance that they can't in a so-called realistic novel.

  Malinda Lo

  Book, Writing, Epic

  Source: www.hbook.com

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• The economy is just a metaphorical device, it’s not real. That's why it's got the word con in it.

  Russell Brand

  Real, Economy, Devices

  Russell Brand (2014). “Revolution”, p.213, Ballantine Books

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• Metaphor lives a secret life all around us. We utter about six metaphors a minute. Metaphorical thinking is essential to how we understand ourselves and others, how we communicate and learn, discover and invent.

  James Geary

  Thinking, Secret, Essentials

  "Metaphorically speaking". TEDGlobal Talk, www.ted.com. July 2009.

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• Think about what artists, novelists and poets have in common: the ability to engage in metaphorical thinking, linking seemingly unrelated ideas, such as, 'It is the east, and Juliet is the Sun.'

  Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

  Motivation, Inspiration, Artist

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• Whatever sympathy I feel towards religions, whatever admiration for some of their adherents, whatever historical or biological necessity I see in them, whatever metaphorical truth, I cannot accept them as credible explanations of reality; and they are incredible to me in proportion to the degree that they require my belief in positive human attributes and intervenient powers in their divinities.

  John Fowles

  Sympathy, Reality, Historical

  John Fowles (1970). “The Aristos”, Signet Book

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• When dams were erected on the Columbia, salmon battered themselves against the concrete, trying to return home. I expect no less from us. We too must hurl ourselves against and through the literal and metaphorical concrete that contains and constrains us, that keeps us from talking about what is most important to us, that keeps us from living the way our bones know we can, that bars us from our home. It only takes one person to bring down a dam.

  Derrick Jensen

  Home, Talking, Important

  Derrick Jensen (2004). “A Language Older Than Words”, p.75, Chelsea Green Publishing

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• I played to win. When I was a child, my brothers and I played cowboys and Indians in the park, and I was always an Indian who got captured. That was a learning experience; they were showing me that as a woman I was going to be captured. But in a metaphorical sense, I think I did eventually become a cowboy.

  Ita Buttrose

  Education, Brother, Children

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• Never let failure discourage you. Every time you get to the base of a mountain (literal or metaphorical), you're presented with a new opportunity to challenge yourself, to push your limits beyond what you thought possible, to learn from climbers on the trail ahead of you, and to take in some amazing views. Your performance on the mountain you climbed last week or last month or last year doesn't matter - because it's all about what you are doing right now.

  Alison Levine

  Opportunity, Views, Years

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• Mysticism and the supernatural are embedded in the show - it's called 'Da Vinci's Demons' for a reason, and it's not just metaphorical.

  David S. Goyer

  Demon, Reason, Embedded

  "David S. Goyer Explains His ‘Graphic Novel’ Approach to Renaissance Intrigue in ‘Da Vinci’s Demons’". Interview with Alison Willmore, www.indiewire.com. April 9, 2013.

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