Symbols are powerful because they are the visible signs of invisible realities. — Saint Augustine
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
Symbolism is no mere idle fancy or corrupt degeneration: it is inherent in the very texture of human life. — Alfred North Whitehead
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
People who look for symbolic meaning fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the images. — Rene Magritte
Signs and symbols rule the world, not words nor laws. — Confucius
The true Tarot is symbolism; it speaks no other language and offers no other signs. — A. E. Waite
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
Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth. — Friedrich Nietzsche
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
Letters are signs of things, symbols of words, whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the words of the absent; for they introduce words by the eye, not by the ear. — Isidore of Seville
A literary work can only be received through symbols, through concepts - for that is what words are; but cinema, like music, allows for utterly direct, emotional, sensuous perception of the work. — Andrei Tarkovsky
Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities. — Emile Durkheim
All nature is a vast symbolism: Every material fact has sheathed within it a spiritual truth. — Edwin Powell Hubble
People have the idea that an image must stand for something else, that the real meaning needs to be described with language. Instead it is the image itself that is the meaning. — Mark Ryden
Short Symbolic Quotes
The Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness. — Marcus Garvey
Behold the crucifix; what does it symbolize? Pallid incompetence hanging on a tree. — Anton Szandor LaVey
Let's not forget that in India the symbol of strength is a woman; the goddess Shakti. — Indira Gandhi
At the rate America is decaying morally, we shall have to change our national symbol from an eagle to a vulture. — Vance Havner
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
The garden is a metaphor for life, and gardening is a symbol of the spiritual path. — Larry Dossey
The horse, the horse! The symbol of surging potency and power of movement, of action. — D. H. Lawrence
Our God is abundant in love and steadfast in mercy. He saves us, not because we trust in a symbol, but because we trust in a Savior. — Max Lucado
Nourishing spirituality means cultivating the inward space, the basis of which all things can be brought together. It means overwhelming deadness and stagnation and living reality in terms of values, inspiration, and symbols of higher meaning. — Leonardo Boff
So often we look at a calendar of days as merely a symbol of the passage of time. We forget why we are on this earth. We forget that there is a reason for all the pain and the struggle. — Lynn Andrews
You can't inspire people with facts. They need a cause. They need a symbol. — Terry Pratchett
As many know, the Chinese expression for "crisis" consists of two characters side by side. The first is the symbol for "danger," the second the symbol for "opportunity." — Al Gore
Mrs. Parks was a shy, soft spoken woman who was uncomfortable being revered as a symbol of the civil rights movement. She only hoped to inspire young people to achieve great things. — Jim Costa
Beautiful Symbolic Quotes
I grew up watching monster movies and horror movies, which I felt were like fairy tales and I think this always spoke to me. Something about that is symbolism - the beauty and the magic which helps me work with film and start making modern fairy tales. — Tim Burton
Berzelius' symbols are horrifying. A young student in chemistry might as soon learn Hebrew as make himself acquainted with them... They appear to me equally to perplex the adepts in science, to discourage the learner, as well as to cloud the beauty and simplicity of the atomic theory. — John Dalton
The best engineer a few decades ago was someone who could create the most beautiful beam or structure; today it's to do a structure you cannot see or understand how it's done. It disappears and you can talk only about color, symbols, and light. It's an aesthetic of miracle. — Jean Nouvel
To me, locs are a symbol of strength and beauty, almost like a lion's mane. — Zendaya
We live surrounded by white images, and white in this world is synonymous with the good, light, beauty, success, so that, despite ourselves sometimes, we run after that whiteness and deny our darkness, which has been made into the symbol of all that is evil and inferior. — Paule Marshall
I am not a sexy woman, I'm not beautiful, I'm not a sex kitten, I don't flirt with people, yet I've been tagged more of sex symbol than women who truly are and I that's solely because I don't reveal too much: people are curious. — Shirley Manson
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
I think it's a beautiful thing when you wear a uniform or a garb which represents a group of people, because what it immediately symbolizes is oneness, togetherness. — Nia Long
Symbols can be so beautiful, sometimes. — Kurt Vonnegut
Formal symbolic representation of qualitative entities is doomed to its rightful place of minor significance in a world where flowers and beautiful women abound. — Albert Einstein
Some Symbolic Quotes
The niqab, for some, has become an antiestablishment symbol around which one can rally and relish in the opportunities for confrontation that it provides. — Maajid Nawaz
In some circles Stalin has in fact been making a comeback. His portrait hangs above the dashboard of trucks, a symbol of blue- collar nostalgia for a tough leader. — Serge Schmemann
Some of the words and symbols and images from childhood will continually be part and parcel of my personality. — Dennis Potter
I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day, rather than a sex symbol. — Steven Seagal
Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are various forms of weaponry, intellectual weaponry, spiritual weaponry, political weaponry, economic weaponry. Because we are on the battlefield, and there are bullets flying, some symbolic, some literal and the life of the mind is a crucial place where the battle goes on. — Cornel West
The profuse phallic symbolism of chess provides some fantasy gratification of the homosexual wish, particularly the desire for mutual masturbation. — Reuben Fine
Some distance away is a white azalea bush which stuns me with its stately beauty. This is pristine natural beauty. it is irrepressible, seeks no reward, and is without goal, a beauty derived neither from symbolism nor metaphor and needing neither analogies nor associations. — Gao Xingjian
Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I've always just simply seen myself as an actor. And I believe that it serves me well to just think in terms of my craft. If hypothetically, I saw myself only as a sex symbol, or as some other limited stereotype, I think I would feel like a complete failure. — Viola Davis
Symbolic Meaning Quotes
I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion -- against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas. — Johnny Cash
The symbol in Chinese for crisis is made up of two ideographs: one means danger, the other means opportunity. This symbol is a reminder that we can choose to turn a crisis into an opportunity or into a negative experience. — Virginia Satir
You must understand what the Parthenon Marbles mean to us. They are our pride. They are our sacrifices. They are our noblest symbol of excellence. They are a tribute to the democratic philosophy. They are our aspirations and our name. They are the essence of Greekness. — Melina Mercouri
We have the power of the Holy Cross, our holy symbol, the divine grace of Christ, only as long as we have the holy marking of the Holy Baptism, meaning we have denied the devil and sided with Christ, and received the Holy Marking, the seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit. — Elder Paisios of Mount Athos
Rhetoric is rooted in an essential function of language itself, a function that is wholly realistic and continually born anew: the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols. — Kenneth Burke
The simplest and most basic meaning of the symbol of the Goddess is the acknowledgment of the legitimacy of female power as a beneficent and independent power. — Carol P. Christ
The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out an inner journey. The inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer pilgrimage. One can have one without the other. It is best to have both. — Thomas Merton
Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith. — Paul Tillich
Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mickey Mouse is, to me, a symbol of independence. He was a means to an end. — Walt Disney
Love Symbol Quotes
Instead of friends, I see in Washington only mortal enemies. Instead of loving the old flag of the stars and stripes, I see in it only the symbol of murder, plunder, oppression, and shame. — Rose O'Neal Greenhow
My attachment to my wedding ring is a powerful symbol of the infinite love that I have for my wife and children. — Gad Saad
In the chakras, it's the heart chakra, anahata, the central chakra, three above and three below, which symbolizes happiness and love, psychic oneness, spiritual understanding. — Frederick Lenz
I will be the Vampire Lestat for all to see. A symbol, a freak of nature - something loved, something despised all of those things. I tell you I can't give it up. I can't miss. And quite frankly I am not in the least afraid." - Lestat, The Vampire Lestat, p. 532 — Anne Rice
We create an environment where it is alright to hate, to steal, to cheat, and to lie if we dress it up with symbols of respectability, dignity and love. — Whitney M. Young
It is because we have such shallow views of God's love that we have such defective views of God's dealings. We blindly interpret the symbols of His providence, because we so imperfectly read the engravings of His heart. — Octavius Winslow
Meditate upon my counsels; love them; follow them; To the divine virtues will they know how to lead thee. I swear it by the One who in our hearts engraved The sacred Tetrad , symbol immense and pure, Source of Nature and model of the Gods. — Pythagoras
The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one. — Reinhold Niebuhr
What is the crowning glory of your civilization... the symbol as clear a statement as the pyramids, the Parthenon, the cathedrals? What is this symbol? What is its name? Its name is Junk. Junk is the rusty, lovely, brilliant symbol of the dying years of your time. Junk is your ultimate landscape. — George Nelson
Status Symbol Quotes
By the time kids are 15, they're drunks and they're drug addicts and they're getting chicks pregnant. The parents wonder, "What did I do wrong?" What you did wrong was, you were never there. You had the kid as a status symbol, that's what went wrong. And you're paying the price for it. — Andrew Dice Clay
The paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. — Dave Ramsey
Simple routine have a greater impact. It is not just to cut costs that we avoid luxury hotels. We do not need fancy cars, posh titles, tailor made uniforms or other status symbols. — Ingvar Kamprad
For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it's time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward. — Erma Bombeck
I would say that if something has an aesthetic value and it is pleasing to watch or to wear, it may in fact have nothing to do with status symbol. You just like to wear it. — Emilio Pucci
Never give up. For fifty years they said the horse was through. Now look at him - a status symbol. — Fletcher Knebel
Name me any liquid — except our own blood — that flows more intimately and incessantly through the labyrinth of symbols we have conceived to mark our status as human beings, from the rudest peasant festival to the mystery of the Eucharist. — Clifton Fadiman
In a way, the sense of quality has improved, the status symbol of the small things is gone, and it is acceptable to use stainless steel, even if the neighbour uses silver. — Arne Jacobsen
People say there's no trace of an accent anymore, and there isn't because I worked very hard to lose it. And the reason I did that is a British accent in America is a real status symbol. — John Mahoney
Martin Luther King would celebrate the symbolic status (of having a black president), but he would examine what the real substance was. And if he saw that poor and working people were not at the center of public policy, he would be deeply, deeply upset. — Cornel West
Heart Symbol Quotes
We need a real tent city in the heart of Moscow. — Alexei Navalny
I do a little sign on the court every time i make a shot or a good pass and i pound my chest and point to the sky - it symbolizes that i have a heart for God. It’s something that my mom and I came up with in college and I do it every time I step on the floor as a reminder of who i’m playing for. — Stephen Curry
Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change. It requires symbolic as well as practical action. — Malcolm Fraser
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
There is in the Sacred Heart the symbol and express image of the infinite love of Jesus Christ which moves us to love in return. — Pope Leo XIII
Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procreates turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The New Religion will manifest, for instance, through organizations like Masonry. In Freemasonry is embedded the core or the secret heart of the occult mysteries, wrapped up on number, metaphor and symbol. — Benjamin Creme
Instead of the word 'love' there was an enormous heart, a symbol sometimes used by people who have trouble figuring out the difference between words and shapes. — Daniel Handler
All souls seeking asylum find WITHIN the unimpeded path to your own freedom and destiny.The human theater of conflict is a battle for hearts and minds through the world of symbols, words and ideas. — Bryant H. McGill
For me, country music symbolized freedom and the joys of life... roaming the country, experiencing the joys as well as the heartbreaks. It was a transporting kind of song, and I'd just kind of sing along with them. — George Takei
Signs And Symbols Quotes
The Christian faith allows us to see further and deeper, to appreciate that nature is studded with signs, radiant with reminders, and emblazoned with symbols of God, our creator and redeemer. — Alister E. McGrath
Each holy temple stands as a symbol of our membership in the Church, as a sign of our faith in life after death, and as a sacred step toward eternal glory for us and our families. — Russell M. Nelson
The vertical and the horizontal are the extreme signs available to man for touching the beyond and his inwardness. — Hans Arp
We are sick with fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas. Meditation is therefore the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will stop talking when a concert is about to begin. — Alan Watts
The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories, and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny. — Winston Churchill
I saw through to the last sign and symbol, but I could not read her face. I could see only the eyes shining through, huge, fleshy-like luminous beasts, as though I were swimming behind them in the electric effluvia of her incandescent vision. — Henry Miller
In poetic language, in which the sign as such takes on an autonomous value, this sound symbolism becomes an actual factor and creates a sort of accompaniment to the signified. — Roman Jakobson
Every phenomenon of nature was a word, - the sign, symbol and pledge of a new, mysterious, inexpressible but all the more intimate union, participation and community of divine energies and ideas. — Johann Georg Hamann
A sign to me is a one-liner, a symbol is very complex and my house is a series of symbols. — Charles Jencks
ALGEBRA is a general Method of Computation by certain Signs and Symbols which have been contrived for this Purpose, and found convenient. — Colin Maclaurin
Symbolism Quotes
My success symbolizes loyalty, great friends, Dedication, hard work, routine builds character. In a world full of snakes, rats and scavengers — Nas
That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there. — George Orwell
The artist constructs a new symbol with his brush. This symbol is not a recognizable form of anything which is already finished, already made, already existing in the world - it is a symbol of a new world, which is being built upon and which exists by way of people. — El Lissitzky
I don't mind being a symbol but I don't want to become a monument. There are monuments all over the Parliament Buildings and I've seen what the pigeons do to them. — Tommy Douglas
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
The flag that was the symbol of slavery on the high seas for a long time was not the Confederate battle flag, it was sadly the Stars and Stripes. — Alan Keyes
Im a hard worker, and everything with me is, if I work hard, I should get paid for it. Everything with me, I try to symbolize something flashy like jewelry or a car. The rubbing hands is a symbol of hustling, so it goes back to the money. — Birdman
If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine. — Diana Wynne Jones
The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people. — Ezra Pound
The anchor in our world today is freedom, holding us steady in times of change, a symbol of hope to all the world. — George H. W. Bush
A polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colourful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots can't stay alone; like the communicative life of people, two or three polka-dots become movement... Polka-dots are a way to infinity. — Yayoi Kusama
Woman, then, stands in patriarchal culture as a signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of a woman still tied to her place as the bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning. — Laura Mulvey
Hermeticism is the science of nature hidden in the hieroglyphics and symbols of the ancient world. It is the search for the principle of life, along with the dream (for those who have not yet achieved it) of accomplishing the great work, that is the reproduction by man of the divine, natural fire which creates and recreates beings. — Eliphas Levi
Architecture has its own realm. It has a special physical relationship with life. I do not think of it primarily as either a message or symbol, but as an envelope and background for life which goes on in and around it, a sensitive container for the rhythm of footsteps on the floor, for the concentration of work, for the silence of sleep. — Peter Zumthor
I think any girl who comes to Hollywood with sex symbol or bombshell hanging over her has a rough road. — Kim Basinger
Twentieth-century culture's disease is the inability to feel their reality. People cluster to TV, soap operas, movies, theater, pop idols and they have wild emotion over symbols. But in the reality of their own lives, they're emotionally dead. — Jim Morrison
Our great symbol for the Goddess is the moon, whose three aspects reflect the three stages in women's lives and whose cycles of waxing and waning coincide with women's menstrual cycles. — Carol P. Christ
The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail. — John Wesley Powell
I actually share her view and understand her frustration when any government attempts to ban secular symbols like Santa Claus or Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer or Christmas lights. — Steve Israel
The American flag, Old Glory, standing tall and flying free over American soil for 228 years is the symbol of our beloved country. It is recognized from near and afar, and many lives have been lost defending it. — Jeff Miller
We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, Our Flag will be recognized throughout the World as a symbol of Freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other. — George C. Marshall
In Conclusion
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