“Metaphors of unity and integration take us only so far, because they are derived from the finiteness of the human mind.”

—  Northrop Frye

Source: "Quotes", The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (1982), Chapter Six, p. 168

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Metaphors of unity and integration take us only so far, because they are derived from the finiteness of the human mind." by Northrop Frye?
Northrop Frye photo
Northrop Frye137
Canadian literary critic and literary theorist 1912–1991

Related quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Nature

Source: Nature

Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo

“The best part of human language, properly so called, is derived from reflection on the acts of the mind itself.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge book Biographia Literaria

Source: Biographia Literaria (1817), Ch. XVII

Houston Stewart Chamberlain photo

“Not only the Jew, but also all that is derived from the Jewish mind, corrodes and disintegrates what is best in us.”

Houston Stewart Chamberlain book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century

The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts) (1899)

Confucius photo

“The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Jim Butcher photo

“A pure heart and mind only takes you so far - sooner or later the hormones have their say, too.”

Jim Butcher book Storm Front

Source: Storm Front

J. Howard Moore photo

“Much of the vagueness of the human mind is due to the fact that the mind is largely composed of material derived second-hand from books. The ideas are not read.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

"Human Nature is Defective", speech to the Young People's Socialist League, The Chicago Tribune, 20 Oct. 1910

“We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us, yet acknowledging that they cannot take us all the way.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Section 1.10 <!-- p. 32 -->
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
Context: We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us, yet acknowledging that they cannot take us all the way.
We can give a child a self-image. But is this a good idea? Hitler did a devastating job at that kind of thing. So does Chairman Mao. … I haven't defined a self, nor do I want to. A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.

“The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or often) by relentless logic. When we are caught in conceptual traps, the best exit is often a change in metaphor—not because the new guideline will be truer to nature (for neither the old nor the new metaphor lies “out there” in the woods), but because we need a shift to more fruitful perspectives, and metaphor is often the best agent of conceptual transition.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"Glow, Big Glowworm", p. 264
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“GOVERNMENT has no rights; it is a delegation from several individuals for the purpose of securing their own. It is therefore just, only so far as it exists by their consent, useful only so far as it operates to their well-being.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Article 1 <br class="br"> &quot;Declaration of Rights&quot; http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/PShelley/declarat.html (1812)

L. P. Jacks photo

“How can the Universe tell its own story save by making use of human speech; how convey its meanings to finite minds save by employing a thinker to declare them?”

L. P. Jacks (1860–1955) British educator, philosopher, and Unitarian minister

The Usurpation Of Language (1910)
Context: How can the Universe tell its own story save by making use of human speech; how convey its meanings to finite minds save by employing a thinker to declare them? So long as the story remains unspoken, unwritten, can we say it exists at all? Does not the significance of things become a story by the very process which ends in the movement of an intelligently guided pen over a sheet of paper, in the reading of printed types, in the utterance of recognised vocables; and until this process has been accomplished is not the “meaning” a mere promise or unrealized potency? Can we learn the history of the world, and of human life, otherwise than by reading, or hearing it spoken? How, then, can we receive it without the intermediation of a writer, a speaker?

Related topics