All ordinances of the Church are symbolic. Man lives in a world of symbols. Language itself is but a series of symbols of that which we sense and think. L-O-V-E is but a poor symbol of the most beautiful thing in the world - the greatest of the gifts of God.


John A. Widtsoe, Joseph Smith: Seeker After Truth - Prophet of God. By John A. Witdsoe. 1951. P.164

There isn't any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.


Ernest Hemingway - (1899-1961), U.S. author. Letter, 13 Sept. 1952, to the critic Bernard Berenson (published in Selected Letters, ed. by Carlos Baker, 1981), of The Old Man and the Sea, published that year.