"Squaring The Circle" As A Metaphor
The futility of exercises aimed at finding the quadrature of the circle has lent itself to metaphors describing a hopeless, meaningless, or vain undertaking.
For example, in Spanish, the expression "descubriste la cuadratura del círculo" ("you discovered the quadrature of the circle") is often used derisively to dismiss claims that someone has found a simple solution to a particularly hard or intractable problem.
Read more about this topic: Squaring The Circle
Famous quotes containing the words circle and/or metaphor:
“Perchance we may,
Where now this night is day,
And even through faith of still averted feet,
Making full circle of our banishment,
Amazed meet;”
—Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore (1823–1896)
“By metaphor you paint
A thing. Thus, the pineapple was a leather fruit,
A fruit for pewter, thorned and palmed and blue,
To be served by men of ice.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)