More than Cool Reason Quotes

“What is meaningful are not the words, the mere sound sequences spoken or letter sequences on a page, but the conceptual content that the words evoke.
Meanings are thus in people’s minds, not in the words on the page.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“It is commonly thought that poetic language is beyond ordinary language—that it is essentially something different, special, higher, with extraordinary tools and techniques like metaphor and metonymy, instruments beyond the reach of someone who just talks. But great poets, as master craftsmen, use basically the same tools we use; what makes them different is their talent for using these tools, and their skill in using them, which they acquire from sustained attention, study, and practice.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“What we are concerned to provide throughout this book is in-
stead a prerequisite to any such discussion, namely, a linguistic and rhetorical
analysis of the role of metaphor in the way we understand a poem.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“Here we find a power of metaphor that we have not
previously discussed, the power of revelation. This is the power that metaphor has
to reveal comprehensive hidden meanings to us, to allow us to find meanings be-
yond the surface, to interpret texts as wholes, and to make sense of patterns of
events.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“Mental progress stops when the mind is
blocked on its path, and a new mental path is needed. Imagination is the formation
of an image, something that the mind can “see,” and which therefore provides a
form of knowledge. Imagination can be understood via this metaphor as the power
to arrive at knowledge by constructing an image, say, an image that allows one to
overcome blockage by reperceiving the situation unconventionally. We say, for
example, “Use your imagination to find some way around this impasse.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“There is a meta-
phoric understanding of the workings of imagination that is based on motion, via
the metaphor that THE MIND IS A BODY MOVING IN SPACE, and the related
metaphor that KNOWING IS SEEING.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“Iconicity provides an extra layer of metaphorical structure to the poem.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“This is, in general, what iconicity
in language is: a metaphorical image-mapping in which the structure of the mean-
ing is understood in terms of the structure of the form of the language presenting
that meaning. Such mappings are possible because of the existence of image-
schemas, such as schemas characterizing bounded spaces (with interiors and exte-
riors), paths, motions along those paths, forces, parts and wholes, centers and pe-
ripheries, and so on. When we speak of the “form of language,” we are under-
standing that form in terms of such image-schemas. Thus, for example, one aspect of sentence structure is given in terms of parts and wholes, that is, the parts of
speech and the higher-level constituents containing them. Other aspects of a sen-
tence’s structure are given in terms of balance, proximity, subordination, sequence,
and so on. The schematic images that allow us to understand such syntactic no-
tions are also used in conceptual structure. It is for this reason that image-
schematic correspondences between form and meaning are possible. The mech-
anism that relates them is the same mapping mechanism used in metaphor.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“What we have here is an image-mapping based on structure—in this case, struc-
ture that is in part metaphorically imposed. When such a mapping exists between
the structure of a sentence and the structure of the meaning or the image that the
sentence conveys, the mapping is called “iconic.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“The last instruction to the disciple is, “Observe / the jasmine lightness / of the
moon.” This instruction embodies all the instructions. The word “observe” has two
meanings: “to look at” and “to conform to,” as in a ritual. It is at once an instruc-
tion for looking at the church, an instruction for understanding the true nature of
religion, and, most important, an instruction for practicing that understanding.
“Jasmine” and “moon” recall the image of the flower superimposed on the
moon—metaphorically the essence of the divine which is above the institution of
the church. A color mapping reinforces the superimposition of the flower on the
moon: the “lightness” of the moon is the color of the jasmine flower. “Lightness”
is also buoyancy; it suggests an upward motion like the scent of jasmine rising
from the ground, in opposition to the oppressive weight of the institutional church.
The lightness recalls the upward force of the lines escaping.
The ultimate instruction to the disciple is to transcend, to rise above, the insti-
tution. This is conveyed metaphorically in the central image of the poem in which
the lines rise above the steeple that is ordinarily seen as “containing” them. Tran-
scendence, motion beyond the ordinary limits, is also conveyed in the very struc-
ture of the sentence that describes the image of transcendence.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“What the disciple is to notice principally are relationships between the church
and the divine: he is to notice that the moon is above the steeple, and tilted; he is to
notice that the lines of the steeple rise up and embrace the moon, that they flank it,
contain it, and guard it; he is to notice that the moon lies in the protecting lines.
He is to notice that while the weight of the edifice presses downward, the jasmine
lightness of the moon remains above. All of this concerns relationships. He is to
notice only to a lesser degree the colors of the scene: the shell-pink of the moon,
the turquoise color of the sky, the way the brown-stone and slate become orange
and dark blue. But the poet points out that, though less important, the colors are
still there to be noticed: “It is true: / in the light colors / of morning / brownstone
and slate / shine orange and dark blue.” What sort of colors is the disciple to no-
tice, if he is to notice them at all? He is to notice the pink of a shell, the blue of a
turquoise, the orange of the sun, and the dark blue of the sky, that is, colors of
things naturally occuring in the real, imperfect world. He is to notice that the colors
of manufactured things—the cut brown-stone and slate building materials—are
transformed in the scene into natural colors.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“Thus, an instruction to see the moon as irregular, as asymmetrical, is an instruc-
tion to see, metaphorically, that the essence of the divine, which the church is to
serve and protect, is not the abstract, perfect, lifeless doctrine of the institution,
but rather real, imperfect, vital beings.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“The higher purpose of the general institution is to guard and support particular souls in their relation to the divine.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“Moreover, a building is constructed by man, but a flower is made by God.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“the institution of the church exists to protect and guard the divine, to be the
custodian of what is most valuable. The lines of church dogma and practice are
thus not important in themselves. Their ultimate purpose is not to provide a struc-
ture for the institution. On the contrary, their ultimate purpose is to protect and
guard and serve the divine. To see the relation between the lines of the church
steeple and the moon is to understand metaphorically the proper relation between
institutional structure and religious value.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“An instruction to the disciple to notice that
the moon lies above the steeple point is thus metaphorically an instruction to
understand that the institution of the church is less important than the divine.
Looking just at the church, without noticing its relation to the moon, would be a
mistake; and focusing on the institution of the church, without concentrating on its
relation to the divine, would be the wrong way to understand religious truth.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“Thus, the “oppres-
sive weight / of the squat edifice” refers via metaphor and metonymy to the con-
straints imposed by institutionalized Christianity.
The last stanza contrasts oppressive institutional constraints with the “jasmine
lightness of the moon.” The smell of jasmine comes from something living, a frag-
ile flower, as opposed to something abstract and institutionalized, like religious
dogma. The smell of jasmine is light, rising upward from the ground, not heavy
and earthbound. Metaphorically, it represents freedom; there is nothing holding it
down, just as there is nothing holding down the moon.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

“Epictetus, for example, asks us to think of
the deity as the playwright who assigns us roles. Our business in life is to play
admirably the role assigned to us.”
― George Lakoff, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor