“The value of metaphors should not be underestimated. Metaphors have the virtue of an expected behavior that is understood by all. Unnecessary communication and misunderstandings are reduced. Learning and education are quicker. In effect metaphors are a way of internalizing and abstracting concepts allowing one's thinking to be on a higher plane and low-level mistakes to be avoided.”
Source: On Building Systems That Will Fail (1991), p. 81
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Fernando J. Corbató 11
American computer scientist 1926–2019Related quotes
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
“All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.”
" A Defense of Slang http://books.google.com/books?id=8WpaAAAAMAAJ&q="all+slang+is+metaphor+and+all+metaphor+is+poetry"&pg=PA110#v=onepage"
The Defendant (1901)
E 91
Variant translation: A good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“To be human is to think through metaphors.”
[Buchli (Ed.), Victor, Christopher, Tilley, The Material Culture Reader, 2002, Berg, 1-85973-559-2, Oxford]
Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 3.
“Either ghosts are a metaphor for history, or history is a metaphor for ghosts.”
Source: Kilroy Was Here (1996), p. 133