Figure

Famous quotes containing the word figure:

    A beautiful person among the Greeks, was thought to betray by this sign some secret favor of the immortal gods; and we can pardon pride, when a woman possesses such a figure that wherever she stands, or moves, or leaves a shadow on the wall, or sits for a portrait to the artist, she confers a favor on the world.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology.
    Roland Barthes (1915–1980)

    When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
    His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
    I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
    And of Priapus in the shrubbery
    Gaping at the lady in the swing.
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)