Obviously a drawing of a person is not a real person, but a drawing of a line is a real line. — Sol LeWitt
By using stale metaphors, similes and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. — George Orwell
A good simile,--as concise as a king's declaration of love. — Laurence Sterne
The painter thinks in terms of form and color. The goal is not to be concerned with the reconstitution of an anecdotal fact, but with constitution of a pictorial fact. — Georges Braque
The mind is inherently embodied.
Thought is mostly unconscious.
Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical. — George Lakoff
The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. — Aristotle
The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you allure the senses to it. — Friedrich Nietzsche
One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and>metaphor. — Ogden Nash
Colloquial poetry is to the real art as the barber's wax dummy is to sculpture. — Ezra Pound
Drawing is speaking to the eye; talking is painting to the ear. — Joseph Joubert
Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. — Jackson Pollock
Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful. — Joseph Addison
I'm never drawing the object itself; I'm only drawing a depiction of the object - a kind of crystallized symbol of it. — Roy Lichtenstein
Short Figurative Quotes
I don't see myself as extremely handsome. I just figure I can charm you into liking me. — Wesley Snipes
I myself consider myself the most powerful figure in the world. — Idi Amin
Everything has been figured out, except how to live. — Jean-Paul Sartre
Haters are just confused admirers because they can't figure out the reason why everyone loves you. — Jeffree Star
If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it. — Michael Jordan
Every great movement of God can be traced to a kneeling figure. — Dwight L. Moody
Survive first. Figure out crayon drawing of destiny later. — Rick Riordan
I figure if a girl wants to be a legend, she should go ahead and be one. — Calamity Jane
Good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get things done. — Jocko Willink
It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance? — Ronald Reagan
Figure out what you need to do to be the heroine of your own story. — Ava DuVernay
Algebra is but written geometry and geometry is but figured algebra. — Sophie Germain
So, my big brother was playing guitar and I figured I'd try it too. — Stevie Ray Vaughan
Optimist is someone who figures that taking a step backward after a step forward is not a disaster, it's more like a cha-cha.
Figurative Language Quotes
The laws of Nature are written in the language of mathematics...the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word. — Galileo Galilei
All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology. — Roland Barthes
There are infinite shadings of light and shadows and colors... it's an extraordinarily subtle language. Figuring out how to speak that language is a lifetime job. — Conrad Hall
Sometimes, you just need a break. In a beautiful place. Alone. To figure everything out.
Language becomes a prison house only poets can escape...if we do not reject any strict distinctions between ordinary usage and figures of speech. — Arthur Quinn
I think physical comedy is an amazing asset because it tells a story that's more universal than just language and dialogue. I grew up watching Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. They're very powerful figures in my life. — Sayings
Women are better at reading body language everywhere in the world. As a matter of fact, it's associated with the female hormone estrogen. Women are better at figuring out of tone of voice, reading your face and posture and gesture. — Helen Fisher
Say YES and you'll figure it out afterwards.
All too often, when people don't know where they are, have jet lag, don't speak the language, and can't figure out the money or maintain intestinal regularity, they get hostile. — Mary-Lou Weisman
It's OK to figure out murder mysteries, but you shouldn't need to figure out code. You should be able to read it. — Steve McConnell
I'd visit the near future, close enough that someone might want to talk to Larry Niven and can figure out the language; distant enough to get me decent medical techniques and a ticket to the Moon. — Larry Niven
I'd say I dream in Esperanto. Sometimes I remember some dreams in another language, but dreaming in languages no, but figures yes, my psychology is this way. — Pope Francis
Explaining Quotes
Never explain yourself to anyone, because the one who likes you would not need it, and the one dislikes you wouldn't believe it. — Ali ibn Abi Talib
You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. — Albert Einstein
Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
A Mother's love is something that no one can explain, It is made of deep devotion and of sacrifice and pain, It is endless and unselfish and enduring come what may For nothing can destroy it or take that love away — Helen Steiner Rice
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. — William Arthur Ward
Just as I wonder
whether it's going to die,
the orchid blossoms
and I can't explain why it
moves my heart, why such pleasure
comes from one small bud
on a long spindly stem, one
blood red gold flower
opening at mid-summer,
tiny, perfect in its hour. — Sam Hamill
Take every penny you have set aside for aid for Tanzania and spend it in the UK, explaining to people the facts and causes of poverty. — Julius Nyerere
I am a Christian, not because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity, but because there were people willing to be nuts and bolts. — Rich Mullins
The whole secret of the campaigns unleashed against Spain can be explained in two words: Masonry and Communism... we have to extirpate these two evils from our land. — Francisco Franco
Figuring Things Quotes
Being able to "go beyond the information" given to "figure things out" is one of the few untarnishable joys of life. — Jerome Bruner
Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste. — William Shakespeare
I sometimes lie, especially about personal things, because what does it matter? I am a kind of minute commodity. My name is no longer my own. I try to lie as much as I can when I’m interviewed. It’s reverse psychology. I figure if you lie, they’ll print the truth. — River Phoenix
A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle for Gilbey's gin, a stooped figure sitting at the edge of a hotel bed, heaving copious sighs like the autumn wind. — John Cheever
Trying to figure things out was my gig. Without the human condition, there's no struggle, no pain and that means no laughter. — Lenny Bruce
I spend a great deal of my personal time trying to figure out one thing, which is, at a given point in time, how should you balance aggressiveness and defensiveness in your portfolio. — Howard Marks
I did study the art of being a barber because I wanted to figure out what my routine would be. Do you start in the front or back? Top or bottom? Swivel the chair or walk around? What I did discover is there's no such thing as the perfect haircut! — Sean Patrick Thomas
The most important thing in art is The Frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively - because without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. — Frank Zappa
Knowing you don't have much time left changes things. You get kind of philosophical. And you figure things out-more like, they figure themselves out-and everything gets real clear. — Kami Garcia
Don’t let fear hold you back. Take the leap and trust that you have the ability to figure things out. — Steven Bartlett
Life Figured Out Quotes
If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose. — T. D. Jakes
Life has three rules: Paradox, Humor, and Change. - Paradox: Life is a mystery; don't waste your time trying to figure it out. - Humor: Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure - Change: Know that nothing ever stays the same. — Dan Millman
No matter your age, stage of life, or circumstances, don't forget to dare to dream with God. You don't have to figure anything out. Just keep saying yes to Him, in big ways and small, and watch what He does. — Lysa TerKeurst
Everyone in life is gonna hurt you, you just have to figure out which people are worth the pain. — Erica Baican
I thought that tackling aging and the mechanisms that promote life would be worth figuring out. I wanted to learn why it is that some people are healthier than others and why some people live to 110 and others only to 60 or 70. — David Sinclair
It’s very important to help people figure out how to manage life, to help people figure out how to think, help inspire them, help show them what can be gained from setting goals and achieving them and that excellent feeling – and that becomes contagious. —
All the time that you spend complaining, you could instead be hustling. You could be chasing your dream. You could be figuring out what you’re doing wrong and improving your life. — Joe Rogan
It’s when we feel too good that we run the risk of becoming overconfident, intellectually complacent, and set in our ways. It’s exactly when we think we have life all figured out that we end up losing our way. — Tim Urban
The family. We are a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms. . . and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together. — Erma Bombeck
Figure Skating Quotes
I didn't lose the gold. I won the silver. — Michelle Kwan
Without strength and courage it's really hard to perform at the highest levels of international figure skating, because you're alone on the ice and you only have seven minutes over two nights to prove yourself. — Scott Hamilton
Literally falling on the ice and having to pick yourself up in front of thousands of people is not an easy thing to do. The thing that you learn is to pick yourself back up, to learn from your mistakes. — Michelle Kwan
High sticking, tripping, slashing, spearing, charging, hooking, fighting, unsportsmanlike conduct, interference, roughing......everything else is just figure skating. — Scotty Bowman
And the fact that I liked to show off and be the center of attention really lends itself to figure skating very well. — Scott Hamilton
Figure skating has been a great influence for me. I took dance at the School of American Ballet, which helped my own skating. And whether you are a skater or a dancer, without sounding narcissistic, it is all about looking in the mirror. — Vera Wang
A tree against the sky possesses the same interest, the same character, the same expression as the figure of a human. — Georges Rouault
Figure skating is a mixture of art and sport. — Katarina Witt
Figure skating is an unlikely Olympic event but its good television. It's sort of a combination of gymnastics and ballet. A little sexy too which doesn't hurt. — Andy Rooney
What was really funny is that as I got older all those guys who called me a sissy in junior high school wanted me to be their best friend because they wanted to meet all the girls that I knew in figure skating. — Scott Hamilton
Figurative Art Quotes
Your looks are laughable, unphotographable, yet you're my favorite work of art. Is your figure less than Greek, is your mouth a little weak? When you open it to speak, are you smart? — Chet Baker
There's no diploma in the world that declares you as an artist—it's not like becoming a doctor. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist. — Kara Walker
I often told the fanatics of realism that there is no such thing as realism in art: it only exists in the mind of the observer. Art is a symbol, a thing conjuring up reality in our mental image. That is why I don't see any contradiction between abstract and figurative art either. — Antoni Tapies
It's just a combination of letters I liked. And when your whole art's based on the lettering you choose, you kinda figure out what ones work together. I just liked the shapes of the k, a, w, s. It has no meaning. — KAWS
When I was in art school, I thought art was something I would learn how to do, and then I would just do it. At a certain point I realized that it wasn't going to work like that. Basically, I would have to start over every day and figure out what art was going to be. — Bruce Nauman
Geometry is the art of correct reasoning from incorrectly drawn figures. — Henri Poincare
With Gnaw I was thinking about traditional sculpture, about carving. I was also interested in figurative sculpture. I put those two ideas together and decided that rather than describing the body, I would use the body, my body, as a tool for making art. — Janine Antoni
[On the ancient Venus figurines:] If the central religious figure was a woman giving birth and not, as in our time, a man dying on a cross, it would not be unreasonable to infer that life and the love of life - rather than death and the fear of death - were dominant in society as well as art. — Riane Eisler
We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. — Salvador Dali
When religion becomes artificial, art has a duty to rescue it. Art can show that the symbols which religions would have us believe literally true are actually figurative. Art can idealize those symbols, and so reveal the profound truths they contain. — Richard Wagner
Figure Painting Quotes
I paint the way I do because I can keep on putting more and more things in - like drama, pain, anger, love, a figure, a horse, my ideas of space. It doesn't matter if it differs from mine, as long as it comes from the painting, which has its own integrity and intensity. — Willem de Kooning
I'm not interested in 'abstracting' or taking things out or reducing painting to design, form, line, and color. I paint this way because I can keep putting more things in it - drama, anger, pain, love, a figure, a horse, my ideas about space. Through your eyes it again becomes an emotion or idea. — Willem de Kooning
Painting is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a life experience. — Chuck Close
No painting can exist without the tension of what it figures and what it concretely consists of. The pleasure of what it could mean and the pain of what it's not. — Sayings
Monet's work would have been even greater if he had not abandoned figure-painting. — Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
You may name a bronze statue 'Liberty,' or a painted figure in a city hall 'Commerce,' or a marble form in a temple 'Athene' or 'Venus;' but what is really there is only a representation of a single woman. — George Edward Woodberry
Painting figures is the hardest, certainly the most taxing genre, and you have to be the most on your game. If you have significant drawing problems, the figure will fall apart and it will read wrong emotionally. — Jacob Collins
When I go to an art gallery and stand in front of a painting, I don't want someone telling me what I should be seeing or thinking; I want to feel whatever I feel, see whatever I see, and figure out what I figure out. — James Frey
What interests me is all the stuff that goes into abstract and abstract-figurative art. Not the styles, but the stuff that, in various combinations, make the styles: mixing and matching painting methods and ideas. — Ed Askew
They asked me to do a show, and I was planning on showing my figure paintings. But my friends told me I shouldn't - the paintings were good but a little old-fashioned. They said, "Why don't you show the other stuff?" I had also been making rather strange objects, more in the Freudian tradition. — Claes Oldenburg
Father Figure Quotes
It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all. — Alice Walker
I never really had that father figure to look up to. I think that's the reason I'm so ambitious. I felt like I wasn't appreciated as a child so I wanted to prove my worth as an adult, as an actor. — Jesse Metcalfe
My father used to say to me, 'Whenever you get into a jam, whenever you get into a crisis or an emergency, become the calmest person in the room and you'll be able to figure your way out of it.' — Rudy Giuliani
Basically, a manager is a father figure to 20 or 25 blokes. It's about trying to get the best out of them and creating team spirit. — Alan Shearer
My father was a really funny guy. He lived a good long life. And he was the reason I wanted to be funny and become a comedian and a comedy writer, so to say that he's somewhat of a mythic figure in my life would be an understatement. — Carol Leifer
Boys want to grow up to be like their male role models. And boys who grow up in homes with absent fathers search the hardest to figure out what it means to be male. — Geoffrey Canada
I've had some amazing people in my life. Look at my father - he came from a small fishing village of five hundred people and at six foot four with giant ears and a kind of very odd expression, thought he could be a movie star. So go figure, you know? — Kiefer Sutherland
How do you convince someone they're not thinking clearly, when they're not thinking clearly? What we're actually saying is no magic, no afterlife, no higher moral authoritative father-figure, no security, and no happy ever after. This is a tough sell. — Phil Plait
The Jews are the conscience of the world. They are the father figures, stern, critical, and forbidding. — Raul Hilberg
Boxing kept me out of the streets, by giving me something to do. And it gave me a father figure in the coach that was there for me. I just reiterated what my mother was trying to teach me about focusing and getting my life together. — Martin Lawrence
Public Figure Quotes
There are simply no public figures today who so challenge the elite business and government establishment and so champion the working class as Jimmy Hoffa did almost daily and with arrogance. — Jimmy Hoffa
Many rightist movements, refraining from hyperinflammatory rhetoric or arming vigilante “brotherhoods” to combat leftists and Jews and assassinate public figures, were considerably less volatile than the Union of the Russian People. — Stephen Kotkin
I don't need a coach to tell me what to say. I need a coach to figure out what kind of shirt to wear and how to look at the camera and how to avoid, you know, picking your nose on camera. — Michael Saylor
I'm not a public figure at all. I don't really go out a lot to places where there are people like those who sit at the bottom of your driveway. — Catherine Keener
We fed the public a line of deceit, dishonesty, a fabrication of statistics and figures. — Bernard Nathanson
Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either. — Gore Vidal
Overnight, I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one. I was Patient Zero. — Monica Lewinsky
You know, there's nothing you can do about your public image. It is what it is. I just try to do things honestly. I guess honesty is what you would call subjective: if you feel good about what you're doing, yourself, if you figure you're doing the right thing. — Christopher Walken
The polls show that 10 percent of the public are ready to vote for me even though they don't know I'm running. We hope that figure won't drop when they learn I'm in the race. — Eugene McCarthy
Ernest Hemingway did a great deal toward making the writer an acceptable public figure; obviously, he was no sissy. — Irwin Shaw
Figures Of Speech Quotes
If the Prodigal Son's a parable, and if Adam and Eve are metaphors, then maybe God is just figure of speech. — Dan Barker
Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but earnestness of soul. — Hannah More
I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner. — Pope Francis
'Studying the Way' is just a figure of speech, a method of arousing people's interest in the early stages of their development. In fact, the Way is not something which can be studied. Study leads to the retention of concepts, and so the Way is entirely misunderstood — Huangbo Xiyun
It's difficult to talk to people who whisper even at home, afraid of Americans eavesdropping on them. It's not a figure of speech, not a joke, I'm serious. — Vladimir Putin
Writing for me is a dragnet that carries everything away with it: expressions and figures of speech, postures, feelings, thoughts, troubles. In short, the lives of others. — Elena Ferrante
A figure of speech is a shifty thing; it can be twisted or it can be straight. — Salman Rushdie
Through seven figures come sensations for a man; there is hearing for sounds, sight for the visible, nostril for smell, tongue for pleasant or unpleasant tastes, mouth for speech, body for touch, passages outwards and inwards for hot or cold breath. Through these come knowledge or lack of it. — Hippocrates
Never use a long word where a short one will do. — George Orwell
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out — George Orwell
I do not want to be controlled by any superpower. I myself consider myself the most powerful figure in the world, and that is why I do not let any superpower control me. — Idi Amin
I finally figured it out, I finally figured out how to find some peace and happiness. I sure would hate for the man upstairs to take me now. But at least I did figure it out. — Lewis Grizzard
The only way that I could figure they could improve upon Coca-Cola, one of life's most delightful elixirs, which studies prove will heal the sick and occasionally raise the dead, is to put bourbon in it. — Lewis Grizzard
Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the Shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular. — Carl Jung
Everytime I look at a zebra, I can't figure out whether it's black with white stripes or white with black stripes, and that frustrates me. — Jodi Picoult
Think you figured it out, but you don't have a clue.
Think you on top of the world, but the world on top of you. — Young Jeezy
You've got to follow your passion. You've got to figure out what it is you love--who you really are. And have the courage to do that. I believe that the only courage anybody ever needs is the courage to follow your own dreams. — Oprah Winfrey
When others kid me about being bald, I simply tell them that the way I figure it, the good Lord only gave men so many hormones, and if others want to waste theirs on growing hair, that's up to them. — John Glenn
Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter. — Harold S. Kushner
If I hadn't been told I was garbage, I wouldn't have learned how to show people I'm talented. And if everyone had always laughed at my jokes, I wouldn't have figured out how to be so funny. If they hadn't told me I was ugly, I never would have searched for my beauty. And if they hadn't tried to break me down, I wouldn't know that I'm unbreakable. — Gabourey Sidibe
It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. — Alexander Hamilton
Music is always a healer. Music has never let me down. I know it’s my religion. There’s the idea that you can’t truly know happiness until you know sadness, so how can you heal yourself unless you’ve hurt yourself? I’m still figuring out who I am, but I know that I’m not who I was. — Brendon Urie
I hate to see somebody get locked up, especially someone as talented as Lil Wayne. You know Wayne is a strong figure in the hip-hop marketplace, and for him to go away for 8 months, you know it's sad for hip-hop as a whole. — Fabolous
Don't tell me you're not beautiful. You're the kind of beautiful the blind would see if we could figure out some way to give them three seconds of sight. — Shane Koyczan
I don't know why I always liked aerospace engineering. I was in the 10th grade when I figured that's what I wanted to do. — Kalpana Chawla
A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point. — Leon Festinger
Behind the debris of these self-styled, sullen supermen and imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one person, because of whom, by whom, in whom, and through whom alone mankind might still have hope. The person of Jesus Christ. — Malcolm Muggeridge
To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour. — Winston Churchill
Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. — Virginia Woolf
During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at-bats a season. That means I played 7 years without ever hitting the ball. — Mickey Mantle
I ain't no saint, but I've tried never to do anything that would hurt my family or offend God...I figure all any kid needs is hope and the feeling he or she belongs. If I could do or say anything that would give some kid that feeling, I would believe I had contributed something to the world. — Elvis Presley
Damn it, if just 5% of people got motivated in some direction, and it doesn't necessarily have to be what I believe in, but if they just got motivated and stopped getting their political ideologies from the mainstream media, they would go out and figure out what they want. — Alex Jones
I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene….No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. — Albert Einstein
We are all going to fall short. We are going to have some bitter losses, very painful defeats and failures. We have to use those to come back even stronger. That's what makes it sweeter, when we can overcome those and figure out a way to win. The great teams can do that, and those are the gold medal winning teams. — Karch Kiraly
Jazz is my adventure. I'm after new chords, new ways of syncopating, new figures, new runs. How to use notes differently. That's it. Just using notes differently. — Thelonious Monk
Men are liars. We'll lie about lying if we have to. I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive. — Tim Allen
Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size. — Virginia Woolf
Again and again I tell God I need help, and God says, 'Well, isn't that fabulous? Because I need help too. So you go get that old woman over there some water, and I'll figure out what we're going to do about your stuff. — Anne Lamott
In Conclusion
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