#symbols

A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection — not an invitation for hypnosis. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#images #mass-media #reflection #symbols #television

The mathematician, carried along on his flood of symbols, dealing apparently with purely formal truths, may still reach results of endless importance for our description of the physical universe. ↗

— Karl Pearson

#apparently #carried #dealing #description #endless

He said that people who loved [animals] to excess were capable of the worst cruelties toward human beings. He said that dogs were not loyal but servile, that cats were opportunists and traitors, that peacocks were heralds of death, that macaws were simply decorative annoyances, that rabbits fomented greed, that monkeys carried the fever of lust, and that roosters were damned because they had been complicit in the three denials of Christ. ↗

— Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

#myth #omens #symbols #death

We don't have too much ritual in our life anymore. And these life symbols which people rely on to keep their feeling of well being, that life is not too bad after all are required more and more. ↗

— John Hench

#anymore #bad #being #feeling #keep

I think every religious person should have a deep sense of respect for other people's religious documents and religious symbols just as we were deeply opposed to the Taliban destroying the two historic buddhas which they blew up. So I think we ought to all oppose burning the Koran. ↗

— Newt Gingrich

#buddhas #burning #deep #deeply #destroying

Countries under foreign command quickly forget their history, their past, their tradition, their national symbols, their way of living, often their own literary language. ↗

— Slobodan Milosevic

#countries #foreign #forget #history #language

Around 1967 Dan Bobrow wrote a program to do algebra problems based on symbols rather than numbers. ↗

— Marvin Minsky

#around #based #dan #numbers #problems

One of the things you do as a writer and as a filmmaker is grasp for resonant symbols and imagery without necessarily fully understanding it yourself. ↗

— Christopher Nolan

#fully #grasp #imagery #necessarily #resonant

When you see a person, do you just concentrate on their looks? It's just a first impression. Then there's someone who doesn't catch your eye immediately, but you talk to them and they become the most beautiful thing in the world. The greatest actors aren't what you would call beautiful sex symbols. ↗

— Brad Pitt

#beautiful thing #become #call #catch #concentrate

I believe in status symbols. ↗

— Brooks Stevens

#i #i believe #i believe in #status #symbols