Symbol
A symbol is something that represents an idea, a process, or a physical entity. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for numbers. Personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose symbolizes love and compassion.
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Famous quotes containing the word symbol:
“Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“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 (1865–1939)
“There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me ...
I do not know it—it is without name—it is a word unsaid,
It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol ...
Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal life—it is Happiness.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)