Symbolic Exchange Quotes

In symbolic exchange, of which the gift is our most proximate illustration, the object is not an object: it is inseparable from the concrete relation in which it is exchanged, the transferential pact that it seals between two persons: it is thus not independent as such. It has, properly speaking, neither use value nor (economic) exchange value. The object given has symbolic exchange value. ~ Jean Baudrillard

The ancient Greeks enjoyed colors and it is assumed that they painted their statues. One can still see today small deposits of colors in classical statues. More than a thousand years later the Renaissance sculptors copied the ancient statues, leaving off the colors. I find that symbolic and telling; what else have we copied from the past, leaving off the colors, nuances, or even the essential meanings? ~ Stephen Poplin

What is needed is this, and this alone: solitude, great inner loneliness. Going into oneself and not meeting anyone for hours – that is what one must arrive at. Loneliness of the kind one knew as a child, when the grown-ups went back and forth bound up in things which seemed grave and weighty because they looked so busy, and because one had no idea what they were up to.

And when one day you realise that their preoccupations are meagre, their professions barren and no longer connected to life, why not continue to look on them like a child, as if on something alien, drawing on the depths of your own world, on the expanse of your own solitude, which itself is work and achievement and a vocation? Why wish to exchange a child's wise incomprehension for rejection and contempt, when incomprehension is solitude, whereas rejection and contempt are ways of participating in what, by precisely these means, you want to sever yourself from? ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Horatia said eagerly: "Oh, you will take m-me instead?"
"No," said Rule, with a faint smile. "I won't do that. But I will engage not to marry your sister. It's not necessary to offer me an exchange, my poor child."
"B-but it is!" said Horatia vigorously. "One of us m-must marry you! ~ Georgette Heyer

Our grandfathers were less well-housed, well-fed, well-clothed than we are. The strivings by which they bettered their lot are also those which deprived us of [Passenger] pigeons. Perhaps we now grieve because we are not sure, in our hearts, that we have gained by the exchange. The gadgets of industry bring us more comforts than the pigeons did, but do they add as much to the glory of the spring? ~ Aldo Leopold

Judy, we think that since the 11th of September, 2001, we've faced a similar heightened threat level. And we've been enhancing both the exchange of intelligence and security information and the assessment of that information, because that's the crucial element. ~ David Blunkett

... modern man no longer communicates with the madman [ ... ] There is no common language: or rather, it no longer exists; the constitution of madness as mental illness, at the end of the eighteenth century, bears witness to a rupture in a dialogue, gives the separation as already enacted, and expels from the memory all those imperfect words, of no fixed syntax, spoken falteringly, in which the exchange between madness and reason was carried out. The language of psychiatry, which is a monologue by reason about madness, could only have come into existence in such a silence. ~ Michel Foucault

Leopardstar says that they're staying with us so the Clans can exchange training methods and fighting techniques, but I don't see much sign of it. All they do is watch ... It's like they're learning all about us, all our secrets and weaknesses. That's why I came over here, to get away from them for a bit. ~ Erin Hunter

In every exchange, Obi-Wan gave ground. It was his way. ~ Matthew Woodring Stover

Every man is tabernacled in every other, and he in exchange and so on in an endless complexity of being and witness to the uttermost edge of the world. ~ Cormac McCarthy

If you are asking me if I would advocate that the Chinese go to greater flexibility in their exchange rate, I certainly would. ~ Ben Bernanke

When in doubt, exchange. ~ John Zimmerman

Innovation is fostered by information gathered from new connections; from insights gained by journeys into other disciplines or places; from active, collegial networks and fluid, open boundaries. Innovation arises from ongoing circles of exchange, where information is not just accumulated or stored, but created. Knowledge is generated anew from connections that weren't there before. ~ Margaret J. Wheatley

At that same time, the Communist regime let the inflation run its course and then, devalued the currency. They issued a new kind of lei. Everybody could exchange 80,000 lei for 20 new lei. The day before the exchange, I had 2 million lei. For that amount, I bought two pairs of hand crocheted summer gloves; there was nothing else available. I would have preferred to purchase a kilo meat, but that was out of the question, unrealistic thinking. ~ Pearl Fichman

When I set out from the boy's attic window, my head was so full of competing plans and complex stratagems that I didn't look where I was going and flew straight into a chimney.
Something symbolic in that. It's what fake freedom does for you. ~ Jonathan Stroud

I met a photographer who agreed to give me a few lessons; in exchange, I had to pose naked for him. ~ Sophie Calle

My judgment is that the rich undergo cruel trials and bitter tragedies of which the poor know nothing. In the first place I find that the rich suffer perpetually from money troubles. The poor sit snugly at home while sterling exchange falls ten points in a day. Do they care? Not a bit. An adverse balance of trade washes over the nation like a flood. Who have to mop it up? The rich. Call money rushes up to a hundred per cent, and the poor can still sit and laugh at a ten cent moving picture show and forget it. But the rich are troubled by money all the time. ~ Stephen Leacock

If we understand many more things than other people, we owe it to our nervous system which is far more disturbed. One says 'I'm sad' but no one realizes what is the cause of his/her sadness; it may come from the stomach; or from a tune we have just listened to and which failed to impress us on the spot; or it may come from frustrated sexual desire ... It is not easy to see beyond symbolic forms of expression. People don't realize that you can negate the progress of humanity because your feet hurt. It is important to see beyond that which is given; and yet, once you see it, nothing matters. ~ Emil Cioran

It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning. ~ Ray Bradbury

While all doctors treat diseases, neurosurgeons work in the crucible of identity: every operation on the brain is, by necessity, a manipulation of the substance of our selves, and every conversation with a patient undergoing brain surgery cannot help but confront this fact. In addition, to the patient and family, the brain surgery is usually the most dramatic event they have ever faced and, as such, has the impact of any major life event. At those critical junctures, the question is not simply whether to live or die but what kind of life is worth living. Would you trade your ability - or your mother's - to talk for a few extra months of mute life? The expansion of your visual blind spot in exchange for eliminating the small possibility of a fatal brain hemorrhage? Your right hand's function to stop seizures? How much neurologic suffering would you let your child endure before saying that death is preferable? Because the brain mediates our experience of the world, any neurosurgical problem forces a patient and family, ideally with a doctor as a guide, to answer this question: What makes life meaningful enough to go on living? ~ Paul Kalanithi

What the hell is going on?" I demand, craning my neck to look at Jeanine. "We agreed-cooperation in exchange for results! We agreed--"
"This is entirely separate from our agreement," says Jeanine, glancing at her watch. "This is not about you, Beatrice."
The door opens again.
Tobias walks in--limps in--flanked by Dauntless traitors. His face is bruised and there's a cut above his eyebrow. He does not move with his usual care; he's holding himself perfectly straight. He must be injured. I try not to think about how he got that way.
"What is this?" he says, his voice rough and creaky.
From screaming, probably.
My throat feels swollen.
"Tris," he says, and he lurches toward me, but the Dauntless traitors are too quick. They grab him before he can move more than a few steps. "Tris, are you okay?"
"Yeah," I say. "Are you?"
He nods. I don't believe him. ~ Veronica Roth

A great Iranian mystic of the fourteenth century, fAlll'uddawla Semnlini, was to speak in similar terms of the "invisible master," the "Gabriel of your being." His esoteric exegesis, his ta'wll, carries the figures of Koranic revelation to a sevenfold depth; to attain to the "Gabriel of your being"

is to pass successively through the seven esoteric levels and to be reunited with the Spirit which guides and initiates the "seven prophets of your being." This striving is also designated as jacob's contest with the Angel, which was so interpreted in the symbolic exegesis of the jewish mystic joseph ben Judah: the intellective soul struggling to be united with the Angel, with the active Intelligence, until the rising of the light ( ishraq), at which time the soul emerges, delivered, from the darkness that imprisoned it.10 Thus no doubt we should speak not of a combat with, that is against, the Angel, but of a combat for the Angel, for the Angel in tum needs the response of a soul if his being is to become what it has to be. A whole series of jewish speculative mystics found the same symbolism in the Song of Songs, where the Beloved plays the role of the active Intelligence, while the heroine is the thinking human soul. ~ Abul Barkat

So part of you wanted to be kissing him and another part of you felt the intense worry that comes with being intimate with someone."
"Right, but I wasn't worried about intimacy. I was worried about microbial exchange."
"Well, your worry expressed itself as being about microbial exchange."
I just groaned at the therapy bullshit. She asked me if I'd taken my Ativan. I told her I hadn't brought it to Davis's house. And then she asked me if I was taking the Lexapro every day, and I was, like, not every day. The conversation devolved into her telling me that medication only works if you take it, and that I had to treat my health problem with consistency and care, and me trying to explain that there is something intensely weird and upsetting about the notion that you can only become yourself by ingesting a medication that changes your self. ~ John Green

A frightful exchange of metaphors took place between the maskers and the crowd. ~ Victor Hugo

My price was his oath that he'd never lay a hand on you again. I told him I'd forgive him in exchange for that.
She wished he'd punched her in the gut. It would have hurt less. Not trusting herself to keep from falling to her knees with shame right there, she just stalked down the hall. ~ Sarah J. Maas

One thing is overlooked, which is this: That the kind of dependence that results from exchange, from commercial transactions, is a reciprocal dependence. We cannot be dependent on the foreigner without the foreigner being dependent on us. Now, this is the very essence of society. To break up natural relations is not to place ourselves in a state of independence, but in a state of isolation. ~ Frederic Bastiat

In fact, it struck me when we invaded last year that if we did it without European and East Asian support, we were risking losing our alliance in Europe in exchange for Iraq, and that is a very undesirable exchange. ~ William Odom

MacMillian groaned again, and sat up. "Clients?"
"Yeah. You know, people who'll give us money in exchange for work. ~ Laura Oliva

The inclination to exchange thoughts with one another is probably an original impulse of our nature. If I be in pain I wish to let you know it, and to ask your sympathy and assistance; and my pleasurable emotions also, I wish to communicate to, and share with you. - ABRAHAM LINCOLN, February 11, 1859 ~ Joshua Wolf Shenk

Fifth, I think that you [Daniel Dennett] and Richard are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design - we are losing this battle, not the least of which is the two new supreme court justices who are certainly going to vote to let it into classrooms - what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues - neither of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas - it is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims - more than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will."

"William Dembski. "Remarkable exchange between Michael Ruse and Daniel Dennett" "
2006 ~ Michael Ruse

To Harry James Potter,'" he read, and Harry's insides contracted with a sudden excitement, "'I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill.'"
As Scrimgeour pulled out the tiny, walnut-sized golden ball, its silver wings fluttered rather feebly, and Harry could not help feeling a definite sense of anticlimax.
"Why did Dumbledore leave you this Snitch?" asked Scrimgeour.
"No idea," said Harry. "For the reasons you just read out, I supposed . . . to remind me what you can get if you . . . persevere and whatever it was."
"You think this a mere symbolic keepsake, then?"
"I suppose so," said Harry. "What else could it be?"
"I'm asking the questions," said Scrimgeour, shifting his chair a little closer to the sofa. Dusk was really falling outside now; the marquee beyond the windows towered ghostly white over the hedge.
"I notice that your birthday cake is in the shape of a Snitch," Scrimgeour said to Harry. "Why is that?"
Hermione laughed derisively.
"Oh, it can't be a reference to the fact Harry's a great Seeker, that's way too obvious," she said. "There must be a secret message from Dumbledore hidden in the icing!"
"I don't think there's anything hidden in the icing," said Scrimgeour, "but a Snitch would be a very good hiding place for a small object. You know why, I'm sure?"
Harry shrugged. Hermione, however, answered: Harry thought that answering ~ J.K. Rowling

Humans don't accept 'I Love Yous' or 'I Trust Yous', and I prefer not to owe anyone anything, except to God, so I don't offer them any 'I Owe Yous' either. Besides, how could I offer 'Owes' to someone that doesn't exchange 'Trusts' and 'Loves' with me? I can't offer promises to someone that doesn't love or trusts me. ~ Daniel Marques