#Symbolism Quotes

“It is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love.”

“Men are so charmed with valor that they have pleased themselves with being called lions, leopards, eagles and dragons, from the animals contemporary with us in the geologic formations.”

“Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose.For whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed.”

“We are like travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs. Whilst we see that it always stands ready to clothe what we would say, we cannot avoid the question whether the characters are not significant of themselves.”

“Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age.”

“There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts. There's fennel for you, and columbines: — there 's rue for you; and here's some for me: — we may call it, herb of grace o'Sundays: — you may wear your rue with a difference. — There's a daisy: — I would give you some violets; but they withered all, when my father died: — They say, he made a good end.”

“What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident?”

“The most excellent symbol of the people is the paving stone. One walks on it until it falls on one's head.”

“Actually, if you could see close in my eyes, the American flag is waving in both of them and up my spine is growing this red, white and blue stripe.”

“The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.”

“I put a Phrygian cap on the old dictionary.”

“And when we view a flag, which to the eye is beautiful, and to contemplate its rise and origin inspires a sensation of sublime delight, our national honor must unite with our interests to prevent injury to the one, or insult to the other.”

“The wolf is the arch type of ravin, the beast of waste and desolation.”

“A good symbol is the best argument, and is a missionary to persuade thousands.”

“All art is at once surface and symbol.”

“And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It will whisper of the garden, You will understand.”

“The dove is my emblem.”

“Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.”

“A seashell should be the crest of England, not only because it represents a power built on the waves, but also the hard finish ofthe men. The Englishman is finished like a cowry or a murex.”

“The torch of liberty is hot; warms those who hold it high; burns those who try to extinguish it.”

“Perhaps love is only the highest symbol of friendship, as all other things seem symbols of love.”

“We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.”

“All the spring may be hidden in the single bud, and the low ground nest of the lark may hold the joy that is to herald the feet of many rose-red dawns.”

“I never consciously place symbolism in my writing. That would be a self-conscious exercise and self-consciousness is defeating to any creative act. Better to get the subconscious to do the work for you, and get out of the way. The best symbolism is always unsuspected and natural. During a lifetime, one saves up information which collects itself around centers in the mind; these automatically become symbols on a subliminal level and need only be summoned in the heat of writing.”

“Kerosene," he said, because the silence had lengthened, "is nothing but perfume to me.”

“If it is unpatriotic to tear down the flag, which is a symbol of the country, why isn't it more unpatriotic to desecrate the country itself-to pollute, despoil and ravage the air, land and sea.”

“Things admit of being used as symbols, because nature is a symbol, in the whole, and in every part.”

“He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals.”

“The spinning wheel means national consciousness and a contribution by every individual to a definite constructive national work.”

“When I paint a woman in an armchair, the armchair is there to show illness and death-or as a protection.”

“It isn't up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them.”

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”

“The dinner even is only the parable of a dinner, commonly.”

“If all the ways I have been along were marked on a map and joined up with a line, it might represent a minotaur.”

“If I paint a hammer and sickle people may think it is a representation of Communism, but for me it is only a hammer and sickle. I just want to reproduce the objects for what they are, not for what they mean.”

“The spinning wheel for us is the foundation for all public corporate life.”

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.”

“Getting my library card was like citizenship; it was like American citizenship.”

“The spinning wheel is a symbol of nonviolence for me.”

“The Charkha is intended to realize the essential and living oneness of interest among India's myriads.”

“Nobody has to tell me that this is a serious business. I'm not fighting one man. I'm fighting a lot of men, showing a lot of 'em, here is one man they couldn't defeat, couldn't conquer. My mission is to bring freedom to 30m black people”

“A plea for the spinning wheel is a plea for recognizing the dignity of labour.”

“The yajna of our age and for us is the spinning wheel.”

“There is, however, this consolation to the most way-worn traveler, upon the dustiest road, that the path his feet describe is so perfectly symbolical of human life,--now climbing the hills, now descending into the vales. From the summits he beholds the heavens and the horizon, from the vales he looks up to the heights again. He is treading his old lessons still, and though he may be very weary and travel-worn, it is yet sincere experience.”

“Baseball is the very symbol, the outward and visible expression of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the raging, tearing, booming nineteenth century.”

“When the wheel was accepted as part of the national flag, it was surely implied that the spinning wheel would hum in every household.”

“Just as there are signs by which you can recognize violence with the naked eye, so is the spinning wheel to me a decisive sign of nonviolence.”

“A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country's flag.”

“The bluebird carries the sky on his back.”

“I might have preferred iron - but bronze will do. It won't rust. This time I hope, the head will stay on.”