Symbolic Uses
Unlike most other methods of measuring time, the hourglass concretely represents the present as being between the past and the future, and this has made it an enduring symbol of time itself.
The hourglass, sometimes with the addition of metaphorical wings, is often depicted as a symbol that human existence is fleeting, and that the "sands of time" will run out for every human life. It was used thus on pirate flags, to strike fear into the hearts of the pirates' victims. In England, hourglasses were sometimes placed in coffins, and they have graced gravestones for centuries. The hourglass was also used in alchemy as a symbol for hour.
Read more about this topic: Hourglass
Famous quotes containing the word symbolic:
“I find it profoundly symbolic that I am appearing before a committee of fifteen men who will report to a legislative body of one hundred men because of a decision handed down by a court comprised of nine men—on an issue that affects millions of women.... I have the feeling that if men could get pregnant, we wouldn’t be struggling for this legislation. If men could get pregnant, maternity benefits would be as sacrosanct as the G.I. Bill.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“Iconic clothing has been secularized.... A guardsman in a dress uniform is ostensibly an icon of aggression; his coat is red as the blood he hopes to shed. Seen on a coat-hanger, with no man inside it, the uniform loses all its blustering significance and, to the innocent eye seduced by decorative colour and tactile braid, it is as abstract in symbolic information as a parasol to an Eskimo. It becomes simply magnificent.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)