Only a creature that can think symbolically about life can conceive of its own death. Our knowledge of death is part of our knowledge of life.

Fire is a natural symbol of life and passion, though it is the one element in which nothing can actually live.

A mind that is very selective to forms... is apt to use its images metaphorically, to exploit their possible significance for the conception of remote or intangible ideas.

Nature, as man has always known it, he knows no more. Since he has learned to esteem signs above symbols, to suppress his emotional reactions in favor of practical ones and make use of nature instead of holding so much of it sacred, he has altered the face, if not the heart, of reality.

The historian does not locate known facts in a hypothetical, general pattern of processes; his aim is to link fact to fact, one unique knowable event to another individual one that begot it.

... the image of feeling created by artists, in every kind of art -- plastic, musical, poetic, balletic -- serves to hold the reality itself for our labile and volatile memory, as a touchstone to test the scope of our intellectual constructions.

The fairytale is irresponsible; it is frankly imaginary, and its purpose is to gratify wishes, as a dream doth flatter.