If the difference between icon and symbol is obvious to you, you can ignore this blog post. If not, this page on the DifferenceBetween.com website seems to describe the difference very well.
In essence (quoting from the DifferenceBetween.com page):
- Both symbols and icons represent other things, but icon is a pictorial representation of the product it stands for whereas a symbol does not resemble what it stands for.
- A symbol represents products or ideas, whereas icon represents only items that are visible.
- Icons are restricted to graphical representation of objects and one can easily understand what they stand for. On the other hand, one has to learn what a symbol stands for, as it is not similar to what it stands for.