The Greek word symbolus means
"bringing together."
-Diane Eichenbaum

Knowledge of symbolism is a net...

in which one can at least catch the unspeakable mystery

of immediate experience of the unconscious. 

-Marie-Louise von Franz

A symbol evolves from the interplay
of nature and projection, history and imagination.
-The Book of Symbols;
Reflections on Archetypal Images

True symbolism depends on the fact that things,
which may differ from one another in time, space, material nature
and many other limitative characteristics,
can posses and exhibit the same essential quality.
-Titus Burckhardt

Symbolic language is language
in which the world outside is a symbol of the world inside,
a symbol for our souls and our minds.
-Erich Fromm

Symbolic language is language
in which we express inner experience
as if it were sensory experience.
-Erich Fromm

Symbols are the instrumentalities
whereby people codify experience,
or create a 'map' of the territory of experience.
-Hugh Dalziel Duncan

All things are symbols.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All things transitory are mere symbols.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All symbols are things
standing for still greater things.
-Manly P. Hall

The symbolized is
greater, and deeper, and older than the symbol.
-W. S. Lilly

Every natural fact
is a symbol of some spiritual fact.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The natural object
is always the adequate symbol.
-Ezra Pound

Things admit of being used as symbols
because nature is a symbol,
in the whole and in every part.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the widest sense, every natural thing is a symbol
for that which constitutes its inner being.
-Thomas Troward

It [symbolism] is speaking without speaking,
it is writing without writing.
The symbol may be said to be an ocean in a drop.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan

Symbols hint at a mystery
but never directly reveal it.
-Richard and Iona Miller

Symbols have a trick of stealing the show
away from the thing they stand for.
-Henry S. Haskins

Symbols are essential to comprehensive argument.
-Benjamin Peirce

Symbolization is the essential act of mind.
-Suzanne Langer

Every symbol is a definite stimulus to the mind.
-Manly P. Hall

Symbolism is linked with thought
through association.
-Silvia Demitz, "Sivananda Radha"

Symbols are the imaginative signposts of life.
-Margot Asquith

Symbols can be understood intellectually,
but must also arouse feeling to be truly understood and integrated.
-Will Parfitt

For a symbol speaks to the whole human being

and not only to the intelligence.

-Mircea Eliade

The symbolic life in some form
is a prerequisite for psychic health.
-Edward Edinger

Symbols not only transmit knowledge
but also show the way to it.
-John G. Bennett

A symbol can never be fully interpreted.
It can only be experienced.
-George Gurdjieff

A symbol can never be taken in a final and definite meaning.
In expressing the laws of endless diversity
a symbol itself possesses an endless number of aspects
from which it can be examined
and it demands from a man approaching it
the ability top see it simultaneously from different points of view.
-George Gurdjieff

Every symbol is a jewel of infinite facets.

-William Douglas Horden

If all meaning is a type of relationship,
then every symbol is at base a duality -
a unity comprised to two or more terms held in dynamic tension.
-Ray Grasse

Every symbol constitutes an intermediary. 

-Roberto Assagioli

Symbols are what mediate
between levels of consciousness.
-Alice O. Howell

Symbols are fundamental concepts for energy exchanges
between very different levels of being.
-William Gray

Symbolism is based on the analogy
between the different degrees of being.
-Titus Burckhardt

The whole realm of symbol
connects consciousness and unconsciousness.
-Marion Woodman

The symbol is the key to the adjustment
between the individual act, problem or situation
and the universal frame of reference -
relative as this universality may be.
-Dane Rudhyar

A symbol is an abstract representation of a reality,
which the human intelligence accepts and possibly theorizes about,
but cannot entirely grasp its fundamental aspect.
-Carlyle Pushong

The symbol stands for what you cannot yet conceptualize.
It has a subtle reality
but seems "alive" when you experience it firsthand.
-Richard and Iona Miller

Characteristically, it is when a man is at the end of his strength and endurance,
but nevertheless holds on,
that the transforming symbol floats into consciousness.
-P. W. Martin

The symbol is the carrying agent
for the experience of intuitive awareness.
-Kenneth G. Mills

What words are to thoughts,
symbols are to intuition.
-Violet Mary Firth, "Dion Fortune"

The door to the treasury of symbols opens wide.
-William Douglas Horden

It is through symbols
that man finds his way out of his particular situation
and "opens himself" to the general and universal.
-Mircea Eliade

The truer the symbol,
the deeper it leads you,
the more meaning it opens up.
-Flannery O'Connor

A symbol opens and opens and opens.
-Marion Woodman

The emergence of sacred symbols within us
signals a new and deeper level
of consciousness of our being
as well as the birth of a new unity.
-John Monbourquette

The true basis of symbolism
is the correspondence linking together all orders of reality,
binding them one to the other,
and consequently extending from the natural order as a whole
to the supernatural order.
-Rene Guenon

The property of the symbol
is to be a synthesis.
-R. A . Schwaller de Lubicz

A symbol is a bridge and synthesizer of opposites
containing and uniting both of the opposites within itself.
-Paul Levy

There has to be a bridge
between the animal and the divine within,
and that is the symbol.
-Marion Woodman

Symbols are accumulators, transformers and conductors
of psychological energies.
-Roberto Assagioli

Symbols are a means for releasing energy for the unconscious.
-Will Parfitt

Symbols serve to express ideas.
Words serve to explain symbols.
For the complete expression of ideas
there is nothing like symbols,
and for the complete explanation of symbols
there is nothing like words.

By examining the words one may perceive the symbols.
By examining the symbols one may perceive the ideas.

The ideas are completely expressed by the symbols,
and the symbols are explained by words.

Once the symbols have been grasped,
the words may be forgotten.
Once the symbols have been grasped,
the symbols may be forgotten.
-Wang Pi

Symbolism encourages originality.
-Manly P. Hall

To realize fully
how much of our present daily life consist of symbols
is to find the answer to the old, old question,
What is truth?
-Thomas Troward

The realization of truth
consists in the ability to translate symbols.
-Thomas Troward

All religious language is symbolic.
-Bradford Smith

It is impossible to transmit the meaning of symbols
to someone who has not reached an understanding of them in himself.
-George Gurdjieff

A good symbol is the best argument
and is a missionary to thousands.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Symbology has always served
to keep the ancient wisdom intact.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan

Symbolism is the best way of learning the mysteries of life,
and the best way of leaving behind ideas which the teacher has passed.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan

Symbols are the footprints of spirit.

-William Douglas Horden

Symbols are keyholes to doors in the walls of space
and through them man peers into Eternity.
-Manly P. Hall

Symbols...are merely veils of light
rendering visible the "Divine Dark'.
-Anna Kingsford

The symbol is the most perfect means
for esoteric transmission.
-R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz

Spiritual teaching
must always be by symbols.
-Mary Baker Eddy

Is the joy in your hearts
not sufficient as a symbol?
-Mother Meera

Symbolic language alone
is able to express the ultimate.
-Paul Tillich

The most powerful inner experiences
can really only be expressed through symbols.
-Silvia Demitz, "Sivananda Radha"

Symbols draw mortal emotion and immortal meaning together.

-William Douglas Horden

To live a symbolic life
is to live a transpersonal life,
a life in which every event can be referred to an archetype,
thereby acquiring a "sacred" character.
-Dane Rudhyar

A symbol's power is charged
by the archetype behind it.
-John R. Van Eenwyk

The higher mental levels are symbol.
They are made of symbols the way a tree is made of wood.
-Ken Wilber

Life itself is a symbol
and each must interpret it
according to the convictions of his own soul.
-Manley Hall