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Symbolize   /sˈɪmbəlˌaɪz/   Listen
Symbolize

verb
(past & past part. symbolized; pres. part. symbolizing)
1.
Express indirectly by an image, form, or model; be a symbol.  Synonyms: represent, stand for, symbolise, typify.
2.
Represent or identify by using a symbol; use symbols.  Synonym: symbolise.  "These painters believed that artists should symbolize"



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"Symbolize" Quotes from Famous Books



... were held so firmly by the thick slime of the sea, that no hand could disunite them. 'They must go back, and be washed again and again by the waves,' a voice within seemed to say, 'on eternity's broad shore they will all be mated. They symbolize human life, and what in the external world are called marriages. The real mate is in the sea, but not joined ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... in general symbolize the dark and mysterious powers of primaeval nature and mind; the younger gods, whatsoever enters more immediately within the circle of consciousness. The former are more nearly allied to original chaos, the latter belong to a world ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... In her song Margaret shows she is still keenly alive to human interests, temporal and spiritual. The priest, bell, and holy well (l. 91) symbolize the church, here Roman Catholic. The bell is used in the Roman Church to call especial attention to the more important portions of the service; the well is ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... tinsel ornament and, where we follow the legend closely, Eikthyner the stag, Heidrun the goat, Freyer's boar and Wotan's ravens and wolves, are hung in tiny effigy as confectioner's sweets. Thus with the Christmas tree alight and with the Yule log on the hearth we symbolize the old worship of the sun-tree and of fire through which we have grown to the better faith of which Christmas is ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... plain. And a final ascent brings us to a colossal Buddha, now reclining, as if his work were done and he were entering upon the bliss of Nirvana. At this last stage there is also a series of waxwork figures which symbolize the vanity of life and of human desire. Four forms represent, first, the babe at its mother's breast; secondly, the youth full of vigor; then the older man haggard with care; and finally, the corpse, upon whose vitals the birds of the ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... of which an illustration is given opposite, is one of the largest in Japan. It is fifty feet high, and, as a work of art, is without a rival. The boss protruding from the forehead is supposed to represent a jewel, and to symbolize Illumination. ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.

... potential in the councils of the state, and their claim to be foremost in its defence in the hour of its danger. Some ray of imagination there is, which, falling on the knightly shields and heraldic devices that symbolize their conceded superiority, at least dazzles the eyes and delights the fancy of the crowd, so as to blind them to the inhering vices and essential fallacies of the Order to whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... is deduced from the figure by which Euclid constructed the equilateral triangle," The columns present the proportions of the Doric, as to diameter and height. The love of the true and beautiful meet. The natural and supernatural both appear. All parts symbolize the passion of Christ. If the crypt speaks of death, the lofty and vaulted roof and the beautiful pointed arches, and the cheerful window, and the jubilant chants speak of life. "The old church reminds one of the Christ that lay in the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... instinct, and the special, distinct peculiarity which belongs to it. Every variety of animals is a manifestation of a divine thought, and yet a thought hinted rather than expressed. Each must mean something, must symbolize something. But what does it mean? what does it symbolize? Continually we seem just on the point of penetrating the secret; we almost touch the explanation, but are baffled. A dog, a cat, a snake, a crocodile, a spider,—what does each mean? why were they ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... calls them, the stonish giants—themselves, and a very curious picture of them has been preserved. [Footnote: Vide Cusick's Five Nations, 2d edition, and Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, vol. i p: 429.] Of them he remarks, "Who the giants are intended to symbolize is uncertain. They are represented as impenetrable by darts." The connection between the stone giants of the Indians, the Eskimo, and the Norsemen, if not historical, is at least identical in this, that they all ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... created on the second day to divide the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above, so there was a curtain in the Tabernacle to divide between the holy and the most holy. As God created the great sea on the third say, so did He appoint the laver in the sanctuary to symbolize it, and as He had on that day destined the plant kingdom as nourishment for man, so did He now require a table with bread in the Tabernacle. The candlestick in the Tabernacle corresponded to the two luminous bodies, the sun and the moon, created on the fourth day; and the seven branches of the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... and that of boys sixteen. The night preceding the wedding must be spent by the couple in watching, in order to avert subsequent unhappiness, and the next day they repair to a mosque and are married according to Muhammadan rites and customs. To symbolize her total submission to her husband, the wife washes his feet. Unfortunately, a divorce can be obtained by the husband for a trivial cause by the payment of a small fee. A native, on being asked why he got a divorce ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... tempted, offer at these points feasts and lectures, or, in other words, "professions of faith." The three lines Nos. 186, 187, and 188, consisting of four spots each, which radiate from the larger circle at No. 179 and that before mentioned at No. 116, symbolize the four bear nests and their respective approaches, which are supposed to be placed opposite the four doors of the fourth degree; and it is obligatory, therefore, for a candidate to enter these four doors on hands and knees when appearing for his initiation and before he finally waits to receive ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... Shakspere makes Falstaff bear away Hotspur, and Hamlet, Polonius. Likewise, while the medieval habit of elaborate costuming was continued, there was every reason for adhering to the medieval simplicity of scenery. A single potted tree might symbolize a forest, and houses and caverns, with a great deal else, might be left to the imagination of the audience. In no respect, indeed, was realism of setting an important concern of either dramatist or audience; in many cases, evidently, neither of them cared to think of a scene ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... that were pleasant to the sight and good for food in the literal garden of Eden symbolize the graces of the regenerated heart, which are lovely to behold, which feed the souls of those who look upon your noble Christian walk, and which become a "tree of life" to the desert hearts of men. In the ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr

... overcome by the bare mental suggestion. But was it a possibility, even a dim and remote one? Accepting this as a temporary hypothesis, was it not borne out by certain facts? The butterflies, for instance. Did not those jeweled ornaments symbolize in some delicate, fanciful way, Marcia's way, her ownership of The Veiled Mariposa? And would not that ownership also account for the much-questioned source of her wealth? He stopped with a jerk up against a dead wall. The Mariposa mine had not been worked for years; the ranches were ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... soul is brought into the church by the Spirit. Thus the church stands upon the moon (the Word of God), clothed by the sun (the Spirit). This is no disagreement with a former use we have made of the sun and moon as symbols. An object may be used to symbolize ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... (churchyards) prayers are not now commonly poured forth to God nor are doles distributed to His poor; the epitsphium is no longer delivered from the steps of the churchyard cross, nor does the solemn lamprophoria symbolize the life ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various

... and I was awaiting an opportunity to surprise you with it. It is the pearl of my collection! What do you think of the idea—that lily which symbolizes triumphant purity, and those thistles, the plants which spring up among ruins, and which symbolize the sterility of the world, at last deserted, again won over to the only perfect felicity? All your work lies in those ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... world, just nymph, when man did dwell Under thy shade, whence his provision fell; Sallads the meal, wildings were the dissert: No tree yet learn'd by ill-example, art, With insititious fruit to symbolize, As in an emblem, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... picture true to reality of what the Souls in Heaven are doing. These nine Heavens, as we said before, are only myths to which from the Empyrean come forth the Elect in condescension to Dante's sense-bound faculties, in order to symbolize certain truths. So in this sixth sphere the poet would teach us that the Heaven of Jupiter represents justice on earth and on the screen of this sphere he would put forth by means of the Imperial Eagle the arguments ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... "Lamb slain,"—typified by all the spotless lambs offered in sacrifice by divine appointment from the time of Abel, had been marvellously restored to life, as no other victim had ever been. (John x. 18; ch. i. 18.) The "seven horns and seven eyes," symbolize the power and wisdom of the Mediator. "It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." (Col. i. 19.) He "giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him." (John iii. 34; Heb. i. 9.) Christ was privy to all the ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... canoe, I have put it back, and have placed in it six warriors, three paddling toward the chapel, and three away from it. Over them hovers an angel,—a mere suggestion, a faint, shining face, a diaphanous form, and outspread hands. Thus we symbolize the conflict in the savage mind at the first entrance of the Holy Word into their lives, with the blessed assurance over all that the Faith must triumph ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... subconsciousness, that wily self has ways and means of expression. In dreams, in humor, in the slip of the tongue, in forgetfulness, in myths of the race, in the symptoms of the hysteric patient, in the creations of writers and artists, the subconsciousness seeks to symbolize in innocent (or acceptable) form its crude wishes. By taking a dream, for example, and analyzing it by what is known as the free association method, one discovers the real meaning of the terms used, the meaning behind the symbol; and ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... some concrete purpose, and have an end to this coming out "by that same door wherein I went" The dear old meditative, contemplative Orientals threw up their hands in despair long years ago and found the figure of the unending wheel to symbolize all processes and procedures: a world, a universe, without termini. Sometimes I think them right, but then again my western mind will not have it that the riddle of the Sphinx may not be solved. Our assurance meets every challenge; mystery may make us humble; ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... these figures are seen two characters or symbols of this type, which in all probability, as will hereafter appear, denote or symbolize the "tying of the years." We may also add that the five days of each plate or group are the five assigned, as I have explained in "Notes on certain Maya and Mexican manuscripts," to the cardinal points. For example, those on Plate 42 are Ahau, Eb, Kan, Cib, Lamat.[280-2] Still it must be admitted, ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas

... Ireland's martyrs; so closes the sad and thrilling record which tells how Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien died. Over the neglected plot in which their calcined remains are lying no stone stands inscribed with their names—no emblem to symbolize their religion or their nationality. But to that gloomy spot the hearts of the Irish people will ever turn with affectionate remembrance; and the day will never come when, in this the land that bore them, the brave men whose ashes repose within ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown

... "honey-cakes," and other tid-bits made of "sweet honey." In the country of Theocritus this custom is said still to prevail: when a couple are married the attendants place honey in their mouths, by which they would symbolize the hope that their love may be as sweet to their souls as honey to ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... however, suggested as often by groups of words as by single words. These groups are treated as single words, and may take pauses before or after them as the case may be. The reader, who is thinking as he reads, will group together words that express one idea, or symbolize one picture, presenting these ideas and pictures to himself and to the listener one by one, and separating by a pause, of greater or less length, ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... created beings in this remarkable vision were "wheels" which appeared to be spheres within spheres, revolving with ceaseless activity and never turning, but always going forward. The wheels were full of eyes. It appears to me probable that these symbolize—and if so the symbol is at once full of meaning and grandeur—the inevitable, ever wakeful energies and forces of nature, the marvellous agency of electricity, chemical affinity, heat, attraction, repulsion, and so forth. We are accustomed to speak of "blind force;" but here observe the wheels ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell

... expands, and preserves;" I infer this from the union of V, whose force is pervasion, Sh, expansion, and N, continuation. Rudra is "the breath that absorbs the breath." Aum is the most sacred name of all names; it is held to symbolize the action of the Great breath from its dawn to its close: it is the beginning, A, the middle, U, and the close M. It is also an affirmation of the relation of our spiritual nature to the universal Deity whose aspects are Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra. I shall have more to say of the occult ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... whose civilization is incomplete. They had in former times the same tendency to create gods and spirits for particular hills, woods, seas, and lakes, to endow the brutes with human qualities, to symbolize in the deeds of men and animals the phenomena of the heavens. Even now the Monteses tell of a tree that folds its limbs around the trunk of another and hugs it to death, the tree thus killed rotting and leaving a tube of tightly laced branches in which ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... thing. But, the fact that so many women were nowadays lifting up their voices in a demand for various degrees of emancipation seemed to show that the long tresses and the flowing garb had really, by process of civilization, come to symbolize certain traditions of inferiority which weighed upon the general female consciousness. "Let us, then, ask what these traditions are, and what is to be said for or against them from the standpoint of ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... flowery favors—the fragrant bunches of sentiment—that fly between cavalier and dame, and back again, from one end of the Corso to the other. Perhaps they may symbolize, more aptly than was intended, the poor, battered, wilted hearts of those who fling them; hearts which—crumpled and crushed by former possessors, and stained with various mishap—have been passed from hand to hand along ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... about. Thus nobody had the least idea where they finally landed—so the cutting was bound to be strictly fair. It made much fun—the bride herself cut the first slice—hoping it might hold the picayune, and thus symbolize good fortune. The ring presaged the next bride or groom, the darning needle single blessedness to the end, the thimble, many to sew for, or feed, the button, fickleness or disappointment. After the bridal party had done cutting, other young folk tempted fate. Bride's cake was ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... way, without committing myself to any opinion as to their morality; and suppose that a few of your opinions and prejudices, briefly expressed, were interspersed in the form of chapters to be skipped: would a book like that symbolize and illustrate the true inwardness of the day off? How would it do to ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... a copper-colored silhouette of the island (the name Cyprus is derived from the Greek word for copper) above two green crossed olive branches in the center of the flag; the branches symbolize the hope for peace and reconciliation between the Greek and Turkish communities note: the Turkish Cypriot flag has a horizontal red stripe at the top and bottom between which is a red crescent and red ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... celebration of a black mass, which was followed by an amazing marriage of the two engaging animals, and the sacrifice of a lamb brought alive into the temple, bleating piteously, with nails driven through its feet. This was intended to symbolize an illuminated reprobation of celibacy and an approval of the married state, ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... present unbelief of the Jewish nation;—the Apostle finds a prophetic emblem of their blindness in the veiled countenance of their great Lawgiver, as described in the xxxivth chapter of Exodus. The mystical intention of that veil, (he says,) was to symbolize the nation's inability to look steadfastly to the end of the dispensation, and to recognize MESSIAH. Nay, to this hour, while they read their Scriptures, that veil (he says) is upon their hearts. And yet, even as Moses, when he returned ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... adopted, and she rose and shut the door. She knew that she could still hear his step on the stairs—he had his father's quick swinging gait—but as she sat listening, and vainly trying to write, the closed door seemed to symbolize a refusal to share in his trial, a hardening of herself against his need of her. What if he should come down intending to speak, and should be turned from his purpose? Slighter obstacles have deflected the course of events in ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... patronize philosophize plagiarize pulverize realize recognize reorganize revolutionize satirize scandalize scrutinize signalize solemnize soliloquize specialize spiritualize standardize stigmatize subsidize summarize syllogize symbolize sympathize tantalize temporize tranquilize tyrannize universalize utilize ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton

... white ties in the evening are ritual, and nothing else but ritual. No one would pretend that white ties in the evening are primary and poetical. Nobody would maintain that the ordinary human instinct would in any age or country tend to symbolize the idea of evening by a white necktie. Rather, the ordinary human instinct would, I imagine, tend to symbolize evening by cravats with some of the colours of the sunset, not white neckties, but tawny ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... all represent various virtues and vices, whose intrigues and warfare against each other symbolize the struggle of the human soul after perfection. The Redcross Knight, for example, personifies the single private virtue of holiness, while Prince Arthur stands for that perfect manhood which combines ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... with the church of Israel, but to be acted over once again by the beast with the church of the new testament: Yea, it is an easy matter to make their witnesses in this their death, and the church of Israel in this their grave, in many things to symbolize. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... metaphorically after surrounding objects, so do they metaphorically describe one another's doings as though they were the doings of natural objects. But assuming a contrary habit of thought to be the dominant one, ancient myths are explained as results of the primitive tendency to symbolize inanimate things and their changes, by ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... 'La natura è scritta in lingua matematica!' ('Nature is recorded in the language of mathematics.') These words reveal his surprise when he realized the implication of his discovery. Still, intuitively he must have known that using geometrical lengths to symbolize the measured magnitudes of forces would yield some valid result. Whence came this intuition, as well as the other which led him to recognize from the figures thus obtained that in a parallelogram made up of any two of the three lines, the remaining line came ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... were found in this interesting structure. Besides the usual stone implements of the mason and the housekeeper, many instruments of bone, such as needles, dirks, and bodkins, were found. Figurines of several kinds were unearthed, carved from soft stone, including several intended to symbolize Indian corn; all these may have been idols. Fragments of pottery were abundant, in full variety of form, decoration, and color, but always the most ancient types. Among the bones of animals, the frequency of those of rabbits, deer, antelope, ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... a narrow, horizontal, yellow stripe across the center and a large white 12-pointed star below the stripe on the hoist side; the star indicates the country's location in relation to the Equator (the yellow stripe) and the 12 points symbolize the 12 ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... a series of wanderings in search of the restoration of his vigor, and this motif is evidently a continuation of the nature myth to symbolize the sun's wanderings during the dark winter in the hope of renewed vigor with the coming of the spring. Professor Haupt's view is that the disease from which Gilgamesh is supposed to be suffering is of a venereal character, affecting ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous

... manuscript literature which was in danger of utterly perishing. With special reference to their work upon the Scriptures, he tells them that they "fight against the wiles of Satan with pen and ink." And again: "Writing with three fingers, they thus symbolize the virtues of the Holy Trinity; using a reed, they thus attack the craft of the Devil with that very instrument which smote the Lord's head in his Passion." But all literature was his care. That the copyists ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... of the former, pattern-stitched about the neck as ingeniously as if a tribe of Wisconsin squaws had tailored it—and mighty fishing boots, vast as any French postillion's, acting as a triton's tail to symbolize the latter: a red cotton handkerchief (dirty-red of course, as all things else were dirty, for cleanliness had little part in Ben), occupied just now the more native region of a halter; and a rusty fur cap crowned the poacher; I repeat it—crowned the poacher; for in his own estimation, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... few men whip many, and those armed with the best? And look—if a sheepman is killed there is the law, you know, and lawyers—yes, and money!" He shrugged his shoulders and threw out his hands, peeping ruefully through the fingers to symbolize prison bars. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... table sat the Trapper, Wild Bill at the other. The woman's chair was at the center of one of the sides, so that she sat facing the fire, whose generous flames might well symbolize the abundance which amid cold and hunger had so suddenly come to her. On her right hand the two girls sat; on her left, the boy. A goodly table, a goodly fire, and a goodly company,—what more could the Angel ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... indicate a self-dedication to what for them would be regarded as pedantic studies. But, says an objector, no rational female would wear cerulean socks. Perhaps not, female taste being too good. But as such socks would symbolize such a profession of pedantry, so, inversely, any profession of pedantry, by whatever signs expressed, would be symbolized reproachfully by the imputation of wearing cerulean socks. It classed a woman, in effect, as a scholastic pedant. Now, however, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... higher end. The concrete is valuable very often only as a means of grasping the abstract. The progress of humanity has ever been from the sensuous and concrete to the ideal and abstract. Not the objects themselves, but what the objects symbolize is the important thing. It would be a pedagogical mistake, then, to make instruction begin, continue, and end in the concrete. It is evident, moreover, that no progress could be made through object-teaching, unless the question and answer method is ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... dioxide, to distinguish it from SO3, sulphur trioxide. Name these: CO2, SiO2, MnO2. The prefixes are: mono or proto, one; di or bi, two; tri or ter, three; tetra, four; pente, five; hex, six; etc. Diarsenic pentoxide is written, As2O5. Symbolize these: carbon protoxide, diphosphorus pentoxide, diphosphorus trioxide, iron disulphide, iron protosulphide. Often only the prefix of the last name ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams

... Independence for Freedom and Equality. Then came the lesser gods of material success. They broke the nation apart. But it survived. Since the Civil War we have grown rich and fat, flaccid and spineless. We are like a great, careless boy with a rich father; our crops and material resources symbolize the rich father who is able to pay for all his son's foolishness. And so the youth has never stopped to think. But underneath that careless exterior there are muscle and character. For what is the history of Youth? If the youth is to become a real man he cannot be curbed ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp

... be used to light his funeral pyre, whose fire and light will make his spirit fit to enter his heavenly abode. He keeps a fire burning on the altar, worships Agni, the god of fire, and makes fire sacrifices on various occasions such as betrothals and marriages. To the Mohammedans lighted lamps symbolize holy places, and the Kaaba at Mecca, which contains a black stone supposed to have been brought from heaven, is illuminated by thousands of lamps. Many of the uses to which light was put in ancient times indicate its rarity and sacred nature. Doubtless, the increasing use of artificial light ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... are lost; namely, that natural history, which he wrote, of all plants, from the cedar of Libanus to the moss that groweth out of the wall, and of all things that have life and motion. This maketh me think that our king, finding himself to symbolize in many things with that king of the Hebrews (which lived many years before him), honored him with the title of this foundation. And I am rather induced to be of this opinion, for that I find in ancient records this Order or Society is sometimes called Salomon's ...
— The New Atlantis • Francis Bacon

... peculiarity that the scarabaeus was venerated by the ancient Egyptians. The lump of earth containing the eggs was considered an emblem of fruitfulness, and the devotion of the scarabaeus, which would lose its life rather than its precious eggs, was thought to symbolize the exceeding love of ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... of him; as soon as there is peace within him the storm lulls throughout the universe, and the contending forces of nature find rest within prescribed limits. Hence we cannot wonder if ancient traditions allude to these great changes in the inner man as to a revolution in surrounding nature, and symbolize thought triumphing over the laws of time, by the figure of Zeus, which terminates ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... creatures, symbolizing the principal forms of their inspiration, are grouped, superb and mournful. Who are they? No doubt Madame de Pompadour, the Geisha of Japanese art, and finally, bestial and degraded, La Fille Elisa—types that symbolize the most salient aspects of that genius—historic, aesthetic, and fictional—which will keep green the precious memory of Edmond ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt

... to the teaching of the "Sepher Yetzirah," that the Three Mothers, A, M, Sh, radiate into three paternal forms of the same. A, M, and Sh symbolize the potencies of Air, Water, ...
— Hebrew Literature

... be that the very word danger is subjected to a different interpretation in each one of our mental dictionaries. It is elastic, comprehensive. To some it may include whatever is terrible, terrifying; to others it may symbolize a worthy antagonist, one who throws down the gauntlet and asks no questions, but who will make a good and fair fight wherein advantage is neither taken nor given. I suppose, to be bitten by vampires would be thought a danger by many who have not graduated ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... of the community, the lack of the best building-materials, and the absence both of architects and of artistic tastes. It was a simple ritual which most of them were to house, and the absence of an ornate service demanded the absence of ornamentation, which would be meaningless because it would symbolize nothing. The influence of the Puritans in Massachusetts, the Baptists in Rhode Island, the Dutch Reformed in New York, the Lutherans and Presbyterians in the Middle and Southern colonies, and the Friends in Pennsylvania, whatever their denominational differences, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... quarter of the world, comprising the captured flags of all the nations with whom the British lion has waged war since James II.'s time,—French, Dutch, East Indian, Prussian, Russian, Chinese, and American,—collected together in this consecrated spot, not to symbolize that there shall be no more discord upon earth, but drooping over the aisle in sullen, though peaceable humiliation. Yes, I said "American" among the rest; for the good old pensioner mistook me for an Englishman, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... good example of it in this evening's paper. Mary McKenna lives south of Market Street. She is a poor but honest woman. She is also patriotic. But she has erroneous ideas concerning the American flag and the protection it is supposed to symbolize. And here's what happened to her. Her husband had an accident and was laid up in hospital three months. In spite of taking in washing, she got behind in her rent. Yesterday they evicted her. But first, she hoisted an American flag, and from under its folds she announced ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... mortal are brought to us. If we follow him, to us there can be no dead. Those who know not this, may still believe in death and weep over the graves of their beloved; [5] but with him is Life eternal, which never changes to death. The eating of bread and drinking of wine at the Lord's supper, merely symbolize the spiritual refresh- ment of God's children having rightly read His Word, whose entrance into their understanding is healthful life. [10] This is the reality ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... when the sun of life begins to lengthen the eastward shadows, that life shall be enjoyed, and that the soul shall pass at last from the quiet scenes of Nature into those higher scenes which they symbolize. There is a thought in all this that the farm is nearer heaven than the street,—a reminiscence of the first estate, when man was lord of Eden; and this thought, old as art and artificial life, cannot be rooted out of the mind. It ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... hat. But in our changeable climate, the risk of "taking cold" suggests the good sense of wearing the hat out-of-doors, and allowing the graceful lifting of the same at greeting and parting to express all the deference that the uncovered head is meant to symbolize. ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... spiral is a primal law, simple yet complex, which we who understand life's manifold ascensions grow to symbolize in ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various

... tenacity has given rise to an abundance of conceits about fidelity, friendship, and woman's love, which have become commonplace simply from their appropriateness. It might, also, symbolize that higher love, unconquerable and unconquered, which has embraced this ruined world from age to age, silently spreading its green over the rents and fissures of our fallen nature, giving "beauty for ashes, and garments of praise for the spirit ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... which we have appetites left. But if we are not artists, actual or future, technique will be impossible, and will seem undesirable. We shall greedily fill our stomachs with the wind of art-philosophy, shall work with the reason instead of with the eye and the fingers, shall symbolize our aspirations, our theorizings, our souls and our consciences, and fondly dream we are painting pictures. Or we shall copy with a hopeless effort after literalness the first face or weed we meet, and call the imperfect, mechanical result a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... said the Scientist, "combinations of symbols. The combinations change as the soul that they symbolize changes. I look at your body and it tells me of your soul. I see a soul full of doubt and darkness, and the doubt and darkness are symbolized in the curved and ugly form of your legs. Brush away the doubt! Dispel the darkness! Aspire ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... besides a constitutional love of adventure, has also a love for the details of camp life, and likes to bring them to perfection. Nothing but a hen with her chickens about her can symbolize the content I felt on getting my scattered companies together, after some temporary separation on picket or fatigue duty. Then we went to work upon the nest. The only way to keep a camp in order is to set about everything as if you expected to stay there forever; if you stay, you get the ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... of the lone seacoast; but he has symbolized historical New England by an environment that he created round a tragedy that he read in the human heart, and in this tragedy itself he was able also to symbolize New England life in its internal features. One thing stood plainly out in our home Puritanism,—spirituality; the transcendent sense of the reality of the soul's life with God, its conscience, its perils, and its eternal issue. Spirituality ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... plan of the exposition was intended to symbolize the history of the Louisiana territory representing the successive occupants of the soil—the wild animals; the Indians; the discoverers; the explorers; the hunters; the trappers, and the pioneers. The aim was to make it one vast educational object lesson. To that end there were extensive ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... prepare for our projected change of life." Lovers of Burns linger over this final parting, and detail the impressive ceremonials with which the pair solemnized their betrothal: they stood on either side of a brook, they laved their hands in the water and scattered it in the air to symbolize the purity of their intentions; clasping hands above an open Bible, they swore to be true to each other forever, then exchanged Bibles, and parted never to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... invokes the aid of the muses. Then, gazing about him, he discovers he is in an atmosphere of sapphire hue, all the more lovely because of the contrast with the infernal gloom whence he has just emerged. It is just before dawn, and he beholds with awe four bright stars,—the Southern Cross,—which symbolize the four cardinal virtues (Prudence, Justice, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... of the States of Vermont and Kentucky, and, after this, others were added. In 1818, Congress decided to return to the original thirteen stripes, and to add a star for each new State, which plan has been followed since. The three colors, red, white, and blue, symbolize valor, purity, ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 23, June 9, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... philosophical perception of identity through endless mutations of form makes him know the Proteus. What else am I who laughed or wept yesterday, who slept last night like a corpse, and this morning stood and ran? And what see I on any side but the transmigrations of Proteus? I can symbolize my thought by using the name of any creature, of any fact, because every creature is man agent or patient. Tantalus is but a name for you and me. Tantalus means the impossibility of drinking the waters of ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... the Bridge, you see, and this stream of people passing over it symbolize the present generation. This side of the bridge represents the past, from which the present comes; this, over the bridge, is the future, towards which the pilgrims are hastening. The idea is to bridge the gulf between past and future, between the old worlds and the new; and with that in ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... horns and to grow so large as to look like dogs, are emblems of atrocious heretics, like Wyclif and the Hussites, who bark and bite against the truth; while the ants of India, which dig up gold out of the sand with their feet and hoard it, though they make no use of it, symbolize the fruitless toil with which the heretics dig out the gold of Holy Scripture and hoard it in their books to ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... understand them. Women were for you a treat in store, until the war broke. Then suddenly you discovered that you had missed the most precious thing in life. You hadn't the time to be wise in your choice, so you turned to some one young and accessible. Her youth seemed to symbolize all that you coveted at the moment; it symbolized going on forever. You weren't really in love with her as an individual; you were in love with the thought of love and youth. You won't believe it, but almost any ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... on driving from the steamer to the hotel, is the large scale on which the city has been planned; the area of squares and streets seems proportioned to the vast dimensions of the Russian empire: indeed the silent solitudes of the city may be said to symbolize the desert tracks of central Russia and Siberia. Only on the continent of America is so much land at command, so large a sweep of territory brought within the circuit of city life. In the old world, Munich offers the ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... tragic events caused by the gross and insupportable insult put by Agamemnon, the mean mind in authority, on Achilles, the typical hero—that this noble and profoundly human theme was a second-rate subject. At any rate, the subject must be of capital importance in its treatment. It must symbolize—not as a particular and separable assertion, but at large and generally—some great aspect of vital destiny, without losing the air of recording some accepted reality of human experience, and without failing to be a good story; and the pressure of high purpose will inform diction and ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie

... To symbolize moral or spiritual disease by disease of the body; as thus, —when a person committed any sin, it might appear in some form on the ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... ordinary herd of mankind. At this stage the ancient religion of nature had disappeared, and the gods who dwelt on Olympus scarcely manifested any connection with natural phenomena. Zeus exercises his power as a ruler and a king; Hera, Athena, and Apollo no longer symbolize the fertility of the earth, the clearness of the atmosphere, and the arrival of the serene spring; Hephaestus has passed from the powerful god of fire in heaven and earth into a laborious smith and worker of metals; Hermes is transformed into the messenger of Zeus; and the other deities ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... person of Christ of that which Christ did in His own person on the night of the Last Supper. Bread is taken and blessed and broken and offered to GOD in thanksgiving: Wine in like manner is poured out and blessed and offered together with the Bread. And the Bread and the Wine symbolize the Body and the Blood of Christ—the Body that was broken and the Blood that was shed—the life that was freely given for the life of ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... but a semblance of an explanation, since we know not what the ether is, and since, by confession of those most capable of judging, no hypothesis that has been framed accounts for all its powers. Such an explanation may be said to do no more than symbolize the phenomena by symbols of unknown natures."—["First Principles," [Section] 71 ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... the same tone. And that for the moment was all he said. He remained by the fire, standing between them where he had planted himself in the flesh, as if to symbolize the attitude he intended in ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... nourished on Plato and Greek Art, the friend of Leo X., the dilettante Pope, the artist who died of love while painting the Transfiguration, did he not live entirely in these modest Venuses holding on their knees a child who is Love? If we wished to symbolize the genius of every painter in an allegorical picture, would it be any other ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... agree with the author in his arrangement and may differ from his interpretation, it must be admitted that the book contains interesting information and is a bold step in the right direction. It is a portraiture of freedom as a motive for artistic expression and an effort to symbolize this desire for liberation to animate the citizenry in making. It brings to light numerous facts as to how the thought of the Negro has been dominant in the minds of certain artists and how in the course of time race prejudice has caused the pendulum to swing the other way in the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... universal law of intellectual procedure: this apparent development or evolution must, therefore, be the condition of the communication of such intellectual process, and the physical terms are brought into this relation by the fact that they symbolize the logical process. If the material symbols of thought were unrelated physically, the thoughts thus expressed would also be unrelated and independent. But such a supposition readers Science impossible, for its one aim is to find the same in the different. If there be no same, ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter

... of, intrepid young women, who have the sharp lines of character to render them independent of the graces. But, if a young woman out alone in the woods was hardly to be counted among the well-born, she held rank above them. Her face and bearing might really be taken to symbolize the forest life. She was as individual a representative as the Tragic and Comic masks, and should be got to stand between them for sign of the naturally straight-growing untrained, a noble daughter ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... is the fiber obtained from the leaves of the Musa textilis and is known commercially as Manila hemp. As it is exclusively a product of the Philippines, it may be taken here to symbolize the country.—Tr. ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... of declining the sovereignty and that regarding the division of the provinces were under discussion. For the right to fasten the laurel in front of his royal residence and to hang the oak-leaf crown above the doors was then voted him to symbolize the fact that he was always victorious over enemies and preserved the citizens. The royal building is called Palatium, not because it was ever decreed that that should be its name, but because Caesar dwelt on the Palatine ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... did a mystery whose key is lost. He was humble, and apparently depressed; and he let his head droop pensively, and looked as if he might be trying to call back to his mind what it was that he had used to symbolize ages ago when he began his function. There was another impressive thing close at hand, but I was not privileged to see it. That was the sacred fire—a fire which is supposed to have been burning without interruption for more than two centuries; and so, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Nevertheless more than one unscrupulous florist has palmed off great fluffy white blooms of Asters as those of Queen Chrysanthemum herself. Size, form, color and substance go to make up a superbly beautiful flower without a trace of coarseness or gaudiness about it. In poetical language their flowers symbolize both bounty and cheerfulness in ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various

... to himself, "if my theories are correct, the architecture which could, by itself alone, symbolize Catholicism as a whole, and represent the complete Bible in both Testaments, must be either Romanesque with the pointed arch, or a transition style, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... Tom. You have been confirmed in the Church. You know what the consecrated bread and wine symbolize. You can recall to mind ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... cases, at least) extended to the author, who, on the internal evidence of his sketches, came to be regarded as a mild, shy, gentle, melancholic, exceedingly sensitive, and not very forcible man, hiding his blushes under an assumed name, the quaintness of which was supposed, somehow or other, to symbolize his personal and literary traits. He is by no means certain that some of his subsequent productions have not been influenced and modified by a natural desire to fill up so amiable an outline, and to act in consonance with the character assigned to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... frequently there is even taste, but common, according to pattern. For you it is necessary to think out something new—something symbolic, or rather something which symbolizes. A woman's dress should be a symbol of her individuality. For you it is necessary to think out a dress which would symbolize aristocracy ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... were fixed on a life quite out of tune with that which surrounded them in their homes. If they pictured rich draperies and rare gems, it was but to adorn with them the Blessed Virgin Mother and the holy saints, in token of their belief that all of pomp and value in this life can but faintly symbolize the glory ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... potentialities had gone unobserved by the quiet little old man. Through the beauty of his own soul he had been enabled to translate the beauties of another, until gradually Delight Hathaway had come to symbolize for him universal woman, the prototype of all that was purest, most selfless, most tender; most to be revered, watched over, beloved. Yet for all his worship the girl remained for him very human, a creature with bewitching and ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... personality that the circling eagle is supposed to be related to him. They have naturally, therefore, explained the analogy above noted by the inference that their ancestors, in painting the volute, had intended to symbolize the whirlwind by representing his tracks. Thenceforward the scroll was drawn on certain classes of pottery to represent the whirlwind, modifications of it (for instance, by the color-sign belonging to any one of the "six regions") to signify other ...
— A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth. • Frank Hamilton Cushing

... you shall be to the end of the chapter, whether you lied about it or not. And now let's deal with practical affairs. I'm going to spend the afternoon on that stolen machine we've got back there; you'll hardly know it when you see it again. I'll paint'er white to symbolize our purity. There's an assortment of clothes the boys have left here from time to time—all sizes and ready for any emergency. You can pick'em over while I'm working on the car. I've got a bag of my ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... stars are supposed to symbolize the theological virtues, — faith. hope, and charity, whose light shines when the four virtues of active life ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri

... family is a unit, and a function of the house is to symbolize and emphasize family unity, there should, nevertheless, be provision for some individual privacy. The most elementary provision, of course, is that there be at least three bedrooms—on the assumption that the normal family will contain both boys and girls. Consequently ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney

... would also add that the official insignia and costume of a cardinal are likewise derived from the pagan usages of Greece. Amongst his co-religionists he is supposed to symbolize one of the Apostles of Christ, who went forth ill clothed and coarsely shod to preach the Gospel; whereas, in truth, his comfortable hat, warm cloak, and showy stockings, are but borrowed plumage from the ordinary travelling costume of a Greek messenger ([Greek: apostolos]). The ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various

... of Liberty, which shall at once serve as a lighthouse and as a symbolic work of art, may be discussed from several different points of view. The abstract idea, as it occurred to the sculptor, Mr. Bartholdi, was noble. The colossus was to symbolize the historic friendship of the two great republics, the United States and France; it was to further symbolize the idea of freedom and fraternity which underlies the republican form of government. Lafayette and Jefferson ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various

... supposed they worshiped their divinities, but the origin of the custom is forgot amongst themselves." If a man dies by violence, they lay him out with his hat and shoes on, as if to give him the appearance of a wayfarer, and "symbolize one surprised in the great journey of life." A woman dying in childbed is dressed for the grave in her bridal ornaments. Mr. Rose is very scornful of the notion that these people are Cimbri, and ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... God, The leaders of the race from age to age Are chosen for their separate work, each work Fits in the given order. All who suffer The martyrdom of thought, whether they think Themselves as servants of my Father, or even Mock at the images and rituals Which prophets of dead creeds did symbolize The mystery they sensed, or whether they be Spirits of laughter, logic, divination Of human life, the human soul, all men Who give their essence, blindly or in vision In faith that life is worth their utmost love, ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... erected to serve as the sacristia, or vestry. In the worm-eaten wardrobe within hung a few vestments, adorned with cheap finery, and heavily laden with dust, over which scampered vermin of many varieties. An air of desolation and abandon hung over the whole church, and to Jose seemed to symbolize the decay ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... the cake are Chinese New Year's lilies (narcissus) growing to perfection in saucers supplied with nothing except clean pebbles and pure water—these are said to symbolize purity and mercy. Above the lilies rise great clusters of artificial flowers, which also have some symbolical import; I am ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 6, June 1896 • Various

... features into a severe frown and strengthened its grip on the boy Mallory's arm. "You knew that they were only painted on the game floor to symbolize the Competitive Spirit," it said. "Why couldn't you step ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young

... and what powers are represented by all these? Do any of them symbolize our own? Some of these certainly represent earthly kingdoms; for so the prophecies themselves expressly inform us; and in the application of nearly all of them there is quite a uniform agreement among expositors. ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith

... been given to this tale. In its primitive form it was doubtless a pure myth of the rain-clouds; but in its later forms we may believe it to symbolize the maritime explorations in the eastern seas, of some of the tribes of ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... dragon that seeks to devour the child is the Satanic power, the Prince of this world. The Dragon is here on the earth because he has been expelled from heaven. The war of the Dragon against the woman indicates the persecutions of the church; the flight of the woman to the wilderness may symbolize the recent escape of the mother church from ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... defiled channels. Yet, in all pagan mythologies, we find traces of the eternal verity in an obvious prominence of cultus offered to one god above the rest; and obvious, though grossly misapplied, glimpses of divine attributes, in the many deified objects which seemed to symbolize his power ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... for their good looks, the portraits of the guests whom one would expect to find installed in those chairs. A grand piano was there; but the absence of any music in its neighbourhood indicated that its purpose was chiefly to symbolize harmony in the home life, and to provide a spacious crush-room for the knick-knacks overflowing from many tables. These were dominated by a large signed photograph of Queen Victoria. In front of an open fireplace, where bright logs were crackling, slept ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... of Leonardo da Vinci to symbolize the difference of modern and ancient art, and to illustrate the intricacy and complication of the former, as compared with the simplicity of the latter. 'Hers is the head,' he writes of the Monna Lisa, 'upon which all "the ends of the world are come", and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... closed with an appeal to various gods to strike with their curses any intruder upon the owner's rights. In addition to this, the stones are embellished with serpents, scorpions, unicorns, and various realistic or fantastic representations of animal forms. These, it would seem, symbolize the spirits, the sight of which, it was hoped, might act as a further and effectual warning against interference with ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow



Words linked to "Symbolize" :   symbolizing, be, personify, symbol, epitomize, intend, symbolization, epitomise, mean, embody



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