“We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things — metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)

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Friedrich Nietzsche 655

German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and cl… 1844–1900

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“A metaphor is a sign of desperation when we need another world to describe what we are feeling. Metaphors are about desperation and safety. We call out to metaphor because a metaphor makes us feel safe.”

Jericho Brown (1976) American writer

On how he employs metaphors in “Jericho Brown: ‘Poetry is a veil in front of a heart beating at a fast pace” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/28/jericho-brown-book-interview-q-and-a-new-testament-poetry in The Guardian (2018 Jul 28)

“When we link things metaphorically we recognise similarity in difference, we think one thing in terms of attributes of another.”

Christopher Tilley (1955) British postprocessual archaeologist.

[Buchli (Ed.), Victor, Christopher, Tilley, The Material Culture Reader, 2002, Berg, 1-85973-559-2, Oxford]

“We know how to speak many falsehoods which resemble real things, but we know, when we will, how to speak true things.”

Hesiod Greek poet

We know to tell many fictions like to truths, and we know, when we will, to speak what is true.
We know how to tell many lies that pass for truth, and we know, when we wish, to tell the truth itself.
Source: The Theogony (c. 700 BC), lines 27–28. Variant translations:

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections — whether from diffidence or some other instinct.
" Education by Poetry http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/edbypo.html", speech delivered at Amherst College and subsequently revised for publication in the Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly (February 1931)
General sources

“Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, "grace" metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, "Why don’t you say what you mean?" We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections — whether from diffidence or some other instinct.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

" Education by Poetry http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/edbypo.html", speech delivered at Amherst College and subsequently revised for publication in the Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly (February 1931)
1930s