Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful. — Joseph Addison
An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers. — Naguib Mahfouz
A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory, and very few eyes can see the mystery of his life, a life like the scriptures, figurative. — John Keats
All that passes is raised to the dignity of expression; all that happens is raised to the dignity of meaning. Everything is either symbol or parable. — Paul Claudel
In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs. — Edith Wharton
Animals are stylized characters in a kind of old saga -- stylized because even the most acute of them have little leeway as they play out their parts. — Edward Hoagland
A priest is he who lives solely in the realm of the invisible, for whom all that is visible has only the truth of an allegory. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Symbolism is the language of the Mysteries. By symbols men have ever sought to communicate to each other those thoughts which transcend the limitations of language. — Manly Hall
The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you allure the senses to it. — Friedrich Nietzsche
It is clear that the world is purely parodic, that each thing seen is the parody of another, or is the same thing in a deceptive form. — Georges Bataille
Never affirm, always allude: allusions are made to test the spirit and probe the heart. — Umberto Eco
Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures. — Jessamyn West
A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it. — O. Henry
I think every beautiful tale in the world hides the truth and reveals it little by little. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Short Allegory Quotes
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. — Socrates
It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. — Haruki Murakami
Everything for me becomes allegory — Charles Baudelaire
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations. — J. R. R. Tolkien
I think cinema is closer to allegories than to reality. It's closer to our dreams. — Manuel Puig
Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. — Leo Tolstoy
Allegories drawn to great length will always break. — Samuel Johnson
She's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Allegories are, in the realm of thought, what ruins are in the realm of things. — Walter Benjamin
Each character is an allegory for every aspect of human existence. — Vanna Bonta
Metaphor Quotes
No matter what you do, you'll never run away from you. — Barry Mann
Helvetica is the jeans, and Univers the dinner jacket. Helvetica is here to stay. — Adrian Frutiger
Never be afraid to be a poppy in a field of daffodils. — Michaela DePrince
Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something's time has passed and be able to move into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a great metaphor for endings. — Henry Cloud
Life is like an elevator. On your way up, sometimes you have to stop and let some people off. — Ziad K. Abdelnour
When we become hollow bones there is no limit to what the Higher Powers can do in and through us in spiritual things. — Frank Fools Crow
Your body is the ground and metaphor of your life, the expression of your existence. It is your Bible, your encyclopedia, your life story. Everything that happens to you is stored and reflected in your body. In the marriage of flesh and spirit divorce is impossible. — Gabrielle Roth
Tell the image makers and magazine sellers and the plastic surgeons that you are not afraid. That what you fear the most is the death of imagination and originality and metaphor and passion. Then be bold and LOVE YOUR BODY. STOP FIXING IT. It was never broken. — Marion Woodman
Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it. — Oprah Winfrey
Now, if the book of Genesis is an allegory, then sin is an allegory, the Fall is an allegory and the need for a Savior is an allegory - but if we are all descendants of an allegory, where does that leave us? It destroys the foundation of all Christian doctrine-it destroys the foundation of the gospel. — Ken Ham
There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories. — Stanley Kubrick
We each create a story - a narritive, a picture, an allegory, a model - for what's going on in the universe. And then we fight - sometimes to the death - to make others believe in that model, or to be able to keep believing in it ourselves. In other words, we try to erase contradictory evidence to that model. — Douglas Rushkoff
I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music. — Amos Oz
Freemasonry is 'veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols' because these are the surest way by which moral and ethical truths may be taught. It is not only with the brain and with the mind that the initiate must take Freemasonry but also with the heart. — Carl H. Claudy
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. — J. R. R. Tolkien
The Society or Fraternity of Freemasons is more in the nature of a system of Philosophy or of moral and social virtues taught by symbols, allegories, and lectures based upon fundamental truths, the observance of which tends to promote stability of character, conservatism, morality and good citizenship. — William Howard Taft
Each has its lesson; for our dreams in sooth, come they in shape of demons, gods, or elves, are allegories with deep hearts of truth that tell us solemn secrets of ourselves. — Henry Timrod
I can work in films as long as the story doesn't have a realistic nature. If I'm working with an allegory, a fantasy, it can be developed in synthetic terms. — Manuel Puig
Why, ever since Adam, who has got to the meaning of this great allegory -- the world? Then we pygmies must be content to have out paper allegories but ill comprehended. — Herman Melville
A novel is not an allegory.... It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing. — Azar Nafisi
The credulity of the church is decreasing, and the most marvelous miracles are not either 'explained,' or allowed to take refuge behind the mistakes of the translators, or hide in the drapery of allegory. — Robert Green Ingersoll
It is one thing, then, to say, "The Bible contains the religion revealed by God ," and quite another to say, "Whatever is contained in the Bible is religion, and was revealed by God." If the latter be accepted, metaphor and allegory become literal statements and the errors and absurdities of bibliolatry follow. — Lionel Trilling
A Witch's work is mind work and utilizes powerful metaphors, allegories, and images that unlock the powers of the mind. — Laurie Cabot
You can make the Ring into an allegory of our own time, if you like: and allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power. — J. R. R. Tolkien
An acquired taste, this dense Jabberwocky-ish word salad is a political allegory about a populace that's been pharmaceutically duped into believing its wretched world is wonderful. — Manohla Dargis
[Allegory] is a flight by which the human wit attempts at one and the same time to investigate two objects, and consequently is fitted only to the most exalted geniuses. — Sarah Fielding
A naked lunch is natural to us We eat reality sandwiches. But allegories are so much lettuce. Don't hide the madness. — Allen Ginsberg
The allegory of Adam and Eve eating of the tree of evil, and entailing upon their posterity the wrath of God and the loss of everlasting life, admits of no other explanation than the disease and crime that have flowed from unnatural diet. — Percy Bysshe Shelley
Death is imposed only on creatures, not their creations, and has therefore always appeared in art in a broken form: as allegory. — Theodor Adorno
A little allegory of the soul - wherever it hides, God will find it. — Eileen Atkins
It is remarkable how a man cannot summarize his thoughts in even the most general sort of way without betraying himself completely, without putting his whole self into it, quite unawares, presenting as if in allegory the basic themes and problems of his life. — Thomas Mann
Nothing is as contagious as enthusiasm. It is the real allegory of the myth of Orpheus; it moves stones, and charms brutes. It is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
There's so much power in allegory, to form ideas and learn lessons that you can actually take and apply to real life. I think that's why I originally really loved fantasy and reading. — Amandla Stenberg
All perishable is but an allegory. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
That’s how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. — Haruki Murakami
Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance. It is tumbleweed distress that thrives on thin air, growing despite its detachment from the nourishing earth. It can be described only in metaphor and allegory — Andrew Solomon
A superhero is someone who, at some point or in some way, inspires hope or is the enemy of cynicism. Even if you bog it down with political allegory, or even if you're doing celebrity allegory. You still need to take the cynical out of it. — Mark Waid
A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory. — John Keats
The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry. He is always poor, out of luck and friendless. The meanest creatures despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. — Mark Twain
There are many ways of writing badly about painting... There is an 'appreciative' language of threadbare, not inaccurate, but overexposed and irritating words... the language of the schools which 'situates' works and artists in schools and movements... novelists and poets [that] see paintings as allegories of writing. — A. S. Byatt
In Conclusion
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