Shane Williamson’s Reviews > Metaphors We Live By > Status Update

Metaphors allow us to understand one domain of experience in terms of another. This suggests that understanding takes place in terms of entire domains of experience and not in terms of isolated concepts. (117)

In all aspects of life, not just in politics or in love, we define our reality in terms of metaphors and then proceed to act on the basis of the metaphors. We draw inferences, set goals, make commitments, and execute plans, all on the basis of how we in part structure our experience, consciously and unconsciously, by means of metaphor. (158)

The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. (5)