Symbolic Quotes

• Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change. It requires symbolic as well as practical action.

  Malcolm Fraser

  Heart, Spirit, Action

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

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and how little we've grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it's not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably; happy birthday? No such thing.

  Jerry Seinfeld

  Birthday, Self, Years

  17 Copy quote

• If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag, wash it.

  Norman Thomas

  Flags, Gestures, Want

  35 Copy quote

• Tattoos are like stories - they're symbolic of the important moments in your life. Sitting down, talking about where you got each tattoo and what it symbolizes, is really beautiful.

  Pamela Anderson

  Tattoo, Beautiful, Talking

  18 Copy quote

• The symbolic view of things is a consequence of long absorption in images. Is sign language the real language of Paradise?

  Hugo Ball

  Real, Views, Long

  Hugo Ball (1974). “Flight Out of Time: A Dada Diary”, p.104, Univ of California Press

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every phenomenon on earth is symbolic, and each symbol is an open gate through which the soul, if it is ready, can enter into the inner part of the world, where you and I and day and night are all one.

  Hermann Hesse

  Night, Soul, One Day

  8 Copy quote

• I run because it's so symbolic of life. You have to drive yourself to overcome the obstacles. You might feel that you can't. But then you find your inner strength, and realize you're capable of so much more than you thought.

  Arthur Blank

  Running, Inner Strength, Might

  58 Copy quote

• Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.

  Alex Haley

  Roots, People, My Family

  51 Copy quote

• Man's ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate.

  Paul Tillich

  Men, Able, Language

  Paul Tillich, F. Forrester Church (1999). “The Essential Tillich”, p.41, University of Chicago Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people.

  Ezra Pound

  People, Church, Literature

  85 Copy quote

• The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age; and when this fact has been established, the remainder of the principles of mathematics consists of the analysis of Symbolic Logic itself.

  Bertrand Russell

  Discovery, Mathematical Logic, Age

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Principles of Mathematics”, p.5, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• We humans are an extremely important manifestation of the replication bomb, because it is through us - through our brains, our symbolic culture and our technology - that the explosion may proceed to the next stage and reverberate through deep space.

  Richard Dawkins

  Technology, Space, Brain

  Richard Dawkins (1995). “River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life”, Basic Books (AZ)

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Aside from that reservation, a fictive tale even has the advantage of manifesting symbolic necessity more purely to the extent that we may believe its conception arbitrary.

  Jacques Lacan

  Believe, Arbitrary, May

  6 Copy quote

• In the case of drama (stage, movies, television ), there appear to be people in almost every audience who never quite fully realize that a play is a set of fictional, symbolic representations. An actor is one who symbolizes other people, real or imagined. [...] Also some years ago it was reported that when Edward G. Robinson, who used to play gangster roles with extraordinary vividness, visited Chicago, local hoodlums would telephone him at his hotel to pay their professional respects.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Real, Drama, Years

  "Language in Thought and Action". Book by S. I. Hayakawa (p.27-28), 1991.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every gesture is a gesture from the blood, every expression a symbolic utterance... Everything is of the blood, of the senses.

  Henry Williamson

  Expression, Blood, Utterance

  15 Copy quote

• Art is the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling.

  Susanne Katherina Langer

  Art, Feelings, Creation

  4 Copy quote

• My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.

  John Dominic Crossan

  Smart, People, Dumb

  107 Copy quote

• The whole of life is symbolic because the whole of it has meaning.

  Boris Pasternak

  Life Is, Whole

  13 Copy quote

• Man is symbolic to the sun. The sun is dealing with a ball of fire and didn't go out yet. Me being symbolic to the sun, that's what keeps me going, that's like my hunger. That's like my fury, my self esteem. That's the elements within me that keep my body motionable. The fire is self esteem. Inner strength.

  Rakim

  Self Esteem, Men, Fire

  Source: hubpages.com

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life insurance became popular only when insurance companies stopped emphasizing it as a good investment and sold it instead as a symbolic commitment by fathers to the future well-being of their families.

  James Surowiecki

  Father, Commitment, Investment

  "Through the Roof". www.newyorker.com. May 08, 2006.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• I've become invested with this symbolic power. It really does transcend what I'm actually doing and what I actually deserve.

  Nate Silver

  Doe, Deserve

  "Nate Silver: it's the numbers, stupid" by Carole Cadwalladr, www.theguardian.com. November 17, 2012.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most mysterious feminine factor, the existence that we men, we don't know. It's woman. It's feminine. That's what the sword is about. That's the symbolic meaning of the sword.

  Ang Lee

  Men, Symbolic Meaning, Mysterious

  "Ang Lee and James Schamus". The Guardian Interview, www.theguardian.com. November 7, 2000.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I readily admit it is easy to make of horses what we will. Silent, in some ways reserved, they allow us to train them, and to project our ideas upon them; to ride and drive them, and to make them symbolic, perhaps to a greater degree than any other species.

  Jane Smiley

  Horse, Ideas, Degrees

  Jane Smiley (2014). “A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money and Luck”, p.7, Faber & Faber

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• When my dad founded our church, he used either a globe or a map of the world behind him. It was symbolic of what Christ said: to go forth and preach hope to the world. We believe in the cross, but we just continued with the globe.

  Joel Osteen

  Dad, Believe, Church

  3 Copy quote

• Often in gothic novels there's a large house, an estate, and it's symbolic of that culture. Usually it's sort of moldering or rotted or something, and sometimes it's a whole community.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  House, Community, Culture

  Interview with Tavis Smiley, www.pbs.org. May 8, 2013.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source