Symbolism Quotes

• 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

  Men, Language, Mystery

  Manly P. Hall (2010). “The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy”, p.36, Courier Corporation

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• Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create an artificial sense of profundity.

  Stephen King

  Profundity, Artificial

  "22 lessons from Stephen King on how to be a great writer". www.businessinsider.com. September 16, 2016.

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• After all, we did not invent symbolism; it is a universal age-old activity of the human imagination.

  Sigmund Freud

  Imagination, Age, Humans

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• Symbolism is no mere idle fancy or corrupt degeneration: it is inherent in the very texture of human life.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Life, Fancy, Texture

  Alfred North Whitehead (1985). “Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect”, p.61, Fordham Univ Press

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• There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Hopeful, Cynical, Patriotism

  "Values of the Wise: Humanity's Highest Aspirations". Book by Jason Merchey, 2003.

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• All nature is a vast symbolism: Every material fact has sheathed within it a spiritual truth.

  Edwin Powell Hubble

  Spiritual, Nature, Facts

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• There is a powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart. There is a powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart

  Kenzo Tange

  Powerful, Heart, Mean

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• Truth speaks best in the language of poetry and symbolism, I think.

  Grant Morrison

  Thinking, Language, Speak

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• I think that a symbolism is attached to particular images, becomes marked in the unconscious. To exorcise it, to rearrange it, to reshape it, to make it my own, involves unearthing it, describing it, deploying it inform, and then rearranging it.

  Sarah Charlesworth

  Thinking, Rearranging, Deploying

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• A symbol is indeed the only possible expression of some invisible essence, a transparent lamp about a spiritual flame; while allegory is one of many possible representations of an embodied thing, or familiar principle, and belongs to fancy and not to imagination: the one is a revelation, the other an amusement.

  William Butler Yeats

  Spiritual, Expression, Flames

  William Butler Yeats, Richard J. Finneran, George Bornstein (2007). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays”, p.88, Simon and Schuster

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• To live in the world without becoming aware of the meaning of the world is like wandering about in a great library without touching the books. It has always seemed to me that symbolism should be restored to the structure of world education. The young are no longer invited to seek the hidden truths, dynamic and eternal, locked within the shapes and behavior of living beings.

  Manly Hall

  Book, Touching, Library

  "The Secret Teachings of All Ages". Book by Manly P. Hall, 1928.

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• I don't like symbolism that hits you over the head. A symbol should not be a cymbal.

  Edward Albee

  Cymbals, Should, Symbols

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• Superficially insignificant or accidental looking detail [in art] may well carry the most important unconscious symbolism.

  Anton Ehrenzweig

  Art, Important, Details

  "Subliminal Ad-ventures in Erotic Art" by Wilson Bryan Key, Branden Books, (p. 37), 1992.

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• Not every book has to be loaded with symbolism, irony, or musical language, but it seems to me that every book-at least every one worth reading-is about something.

  Stephen King

  Book, Reading, Writing

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• 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.

  Ray Bradbury

  Writing, Exercise, Self

  "Famous Novelists on Symbolism in Their Work and Whether It Was Intentional". mentalfloss.com. June 15, 2012.

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• It's the emotion...each word has got a connotation and symbolism and the thing is finding what's behind the word-what meaning it has and what emotion. I'm really into vocal repetition as a definite art form.

  Van Morrison

  Art, Emotion, Connotation

  Interview with Ritchie Yorke, ritchieyorke.com. April 21.

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• When you have spent an important part of your life playing Let's Pretend, it's often easy to see symbolism where none exists.

  Gene Tierney

  Important, Easy

  Gene Tierney, Mickey Herskowitz (1979). “Self-portrait”, Peter Wyden

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• The Biblical worldview is not given to us in the discursive and analytical language of philosophy and science, but in rich and compact language of symbolism and art.

  James Jordan

  Art, Philosophy, Biblical

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• The true Tarot is symbolism; it speaks no other language and offers no other signs.

  A. E. Waite

  Tarot, Language, Speak

  A. E. Waite (2012). “The Pictorial Key to the Tarot”, p.2, Courier Corporation

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• The ocean is a central image. It is the symbolism of a great journey.

  Enya

  Ocean, Healing, Journey

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Symbolism perhaps is a bit in your face, and I've tried my best to control that as best I can as I've grown older and thought that one could approach something with a little more subtlety.

  John Schlesinger

  Littles, Faces, Your Face

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• It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

  Albert Pike

  Religious, Book, Knowledge

  Albert Pike “Morals and Dogma : Scottish Rite in Freemasonry”, Lulu.com

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• I have always said to my pupils: "Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it when you are analyzing a dream."

  Carl Jung

  Dream, Analyzing, Forget

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• Symbolism erects a facade of respectability to hide the indecency of dreams.

  Mason Cooley

  Dream, Facade, Respectability

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• It began in images and it ended in symbolism.

  B. W. Powe

  "Mystic Trudeau: The Fire and the Rose". Book by B. W. Powe, 2007.

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