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Metaphor Quotes

Browse 2099 quotes about Metaphor.

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Metaphor Quotes

“Analogies and metaphors have often proved pivotal in expanding our thoughts both within and without science, and so one should not discourage the attempt to synthesize apparent opposites. However, citizens of the New Age often forget that, when they involve science, analogies should be tempered by experiment and calculation.”

ThinkingShouldAgeForgetCitizensOppositesMetaphorExperimentsOur ThoughtsNew AgeExpandingDiscouragingCalculationsAnalogiesPivotal
Author:Tony Rothman
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“The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or often) by relentless logic. When we are caught in conceptual traps, the best exit is often a change in metaphor not because the new guideline will be truer to nature (for neither the old nor the new metaphor lies "out there" in the woods), but because we need a shift to more fruitful perspectives, and metaphor is often the best agent of conceptual transition.”

NeedsMindFactsLyingViewsPerspectiveLogicMetaphorCaughtWoodsAgentsComparisonTransitionTrapsRelentlessExitGuidelinesSpectacles
Book:Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History
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“Myth is the system of basic metaphors, images, and stories that informs the perceptions, memories, and aspirations of a people; provides the rationale for its institutions, rituals and power structure; and gives a map of the purpose and stages of life.”

PeopleGivingStoriesPurposeMemoriesStagePerceptionInstitutionsStructureMetaphorMythMythologyAspirationMapsRitualRationaleStages Of Life
Book:The passionate life: stages of loving
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“In tracking down and eliminating terrorists, we need to change our metaphor from a "war on terror" - exactly what, pray tell, is that? - to the mind-set of Interpol tracking down master criminals through intense global cooperation among nations, or the FBI stalking the Mafia, or local police determined to quell street gangs without leveling the entire neighborhood in the process.”

NeedsMindWarNationsProcessStreetsMastersPrayingPoliceDown AndMetaphorTerrorDeterminedCriminalsTerroristIntenseLocalsNeighborhoodCooperationGangMafiaFbiStalkingWar On TerrorNeed A ChangeEliminatingMind SetTracking
Author:Bill Moyers
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“We didn't build our bridges simply to avoid walking on water. Nothing so obvious. A bridge is a meeting place. A neutral place. A casual place. Enemies will choose to meet on a bridge and end their quarrel in that void... For lovers, a bridge is a possibility, a metaphor of their chances. And for the traffic in whispered goods, where else but a bridge in the night?”

EndsNightWaterChanceEnemyPossibilityLoversWalkingMeetingsMetaphorObviousBridgesGoodsVoidTrafficQuarrelsCasualWalking On Water
Book:The Passion
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“Let the snake wait under his weed and the writing be of words, slow and quick, sharp to strike, quiet to wait, sleepless. - through metaphor to reconcile the people and the stones. Compose. (No ideas but in things) Invent! Saxifrage is my flower that splits the rocks.”

PeopleWritingIdeasWaitingRocksFlowerQuietStonesMetaphorStrikesNo IdeaWeedSplitsSnakesReconcile
Book:The Collected Poems of Williams Carlos Williams: 1939-1962
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“Creativity itself doesn't care at all about results - the only thing it craves is the process. Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it. Work like a monk, or a mule, or some other representative metaphor for diligence. Love the work. Destiny will do what it wants with you, regardless.”

WantHappensCareNextProcessResultsCreativityDestinyToo MuchMetaphorRepresentativesMonkCraveDiligenceWhatever HappensMulesFussing
Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
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“Literally, the Bible is a gigantic myth, a narrative extending over the whole of time from creation to apocalypse, unified by a body of recurring imagery that "freezes" into a single metaphor cluster, the metaphors all being identified with the body of the Messiah, the man who is all men, the totality logoi who is one Logos, the grain of sand that is the world.”

MenWorldWholeBodyCreationHe ManMetaphorMythNarrativeSandGrainApocalypseImageryFreezeMessiahTotalityExtendingUnifiedLogosRecurringGrains Of SandClusters
Author:Northrop Frye
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“This is the highest honour of the Church, that, until He is united to us, the Son of God reckons himself in some measure imperfect. What consolation is it for us to learn, that, not until we are along with him, does he possess all his parts, or wish to be regarded as complete! Hence, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, when the apostle discusses largely the metaphor of a human body, he includes under the single name of Christ the whole Church.”

FirstsHumansDoeWholeBodyNamesWishChristChurchUnitedSonHighestMetaphorHonourImperfectConsolationHuman BodyApostlesCorinthians
Author:John Calvin
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“In abbreviated form, by a kind of symbol, only the most essential information is passed on and passed on only to those concerned. It is more than a metaphor to describe the price system as a kind of machinery for registering change, or a system of telecommunications which enables individual producers to watch merely the movement of a few pointers, as an engineer might watch the hands of a few dials, in order to adjust their activities to changes of which they may never know more than is reflected in the price movement.”

KnowsKindMayHandsMightFormOrderIndividualWatchesInformationMovementActivityEssentialsConcernedMetaphorProducersSymbolsEngineersMachineryWatch MePointersTelecommunications
Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
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“My metaphor for acting in movies - not on stage because it's completely different on stage - is to put colors on an easel for the director to paint his own painting with in the editing room, long after I've left. You buy me for red and black, so I better give you really great red and black, but if I can give you purple, pink, green and brown too, I will.”

IfsGivingLongI CanDifferentLeftBlackRoomsActingStageColorPaintingDirectorsRedGreenPaintMetaphorBrownEditingReally GreatPurpleActing In MoviesRed And Black
Author:Scott Glenn
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“The last level of metaphor in the Alice books is this: that life, viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician. At the heart of things science finds only a mad, never-ending quadrille of Mock Turtle Waves and Gryphon Particles. For a moment the waves and particles dance in grotesque, inconceivably complex patterns capable of reflecting on their own absurdity.”

HeartBookMomentsLastsLevelsCapableIllusionMadComplexesMetaphorWavePatternsTalesIdiotNonsenseMathematicianAbsurdityParticlesReflectingMockNever EndingGrotesqueTurtles
Author:Martin Gardner
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“Every time some new huckster of angst-ridden metaphor is appointed by Art Forum, the congregation genuflects, stroking the catalog like a handful of Rosary beads, and starts spreading that old gospel according to Hyperbole. No questions asked... And thus the bill of goods is sold, all along the line. An art historical snake, swallowing its own tale.”

ArtLinesBillsHistoricalMetaphorTalesGoodsSnakesHandfulAngstCongregationForumsBeadsRosaryContemporary ArtSwallowingHyperboleQuestions AskedRosary Beads
Author:Abe Ajay
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“Tonight, I should watch the sun set, and think of the impending darkness as a metaphor for my wasted life: once it was bright, and full of potential, and now it is dark and hopeless and bleak. I should not make the mistake of thinking that the moon and the stars represent slim glimmers of hope, or evidence that there is light on the other side. Even if there is light somewhere I will never walk in it again.”

IfsThinkingShouldLightStarsSidesDarkWalksMistakeWatchesDarknessSunMoonEvidenceMetaphorTonightHopelessBleakSlimWasted LifeSun Set
Author:John S. Hall
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