Quotes about Metaphor

Angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition.

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery.

favorite metaphors. I love the image of fire, not for its seeming destructiveness, but as a natural symbol for transformation—literally, the changing of forms. Farmers, forestry workers, and Native peoples know that fire is a renewing force, even as it also can be destructive. We in the West tend to see it as merely destructive (which is probably why we did not understand the metaphors of hell or purgatory).

What is your view of life? You may be basing your life on a faulty life metaphor. To fulfill the purposes God made you for, you will have to challenge conventional wisdom and replace it with the biblical metaphors of life. The Bible says, "Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God.

Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant.

Finally, we should note that in the Song, the Bridegroom is sometimes called a king and the bride a queen. Sometimes he is a shepherd; sometimes they are workers in the vineyard. Sometimes they are in a palace; sometimes in the field. This teaches that people of all social classes are called to participate in spiritual life at the highest level.

Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.

Door in the Dark: In going from room to room in the dark, I reached out blindly to save my face, But neglected, however lightly, to lace My fingers and close my arms in an arc. A slim door got in past my guard, And hit me a blow in the head so hard I had my native simile jarred. So people and things don't pair any more With what they used to pair with before.

Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery.