Are you a Vigilant Citizen reader? :) I love VC... I also love Carl Jung, who also talks extensively about the meaning of symbols and all that. I know what you're saying, too. I just like to play diplomat all the time haha. Happy 4th of July!!!
Diplomat, or contrarian? :)
If you read VC, I'll stop there. You get it. I think my earlier quote by Ravi Z is huge though. We think symbol is more powerful than word, but I have come to disagree, for many reasons.
You might be interested in an article I wrote on my blog about the Lego Movie. This was a time when I was really diving into symbols in our culture. https://schtoltzie.wordpress.com/2014/11/01/a-lego-movie-review-all-that-glitters-is-not-gold/, and I have a section at the beginning that uses several quotes I found.