Aphorism Quotes
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The aphorism "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he" contains the secret of life .
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More Aphorism Quotes
In an aphorism, aptness counts for more than truth.
mason cooley— City Aphorisms, Fourth Selection (1987)
Aphorismsgive you more for your time and money than any other literary form.Only the poem comes near to it, but then most good poems either start off from an aphorism orarrive at one? Aphorisms and epigrams are the corner-stones of literaryart.
Louis Dudek— Collected in Notebooks1960-1994 (1994).
'Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry' is an aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow.
Nancy Freeman Mitford— 1949 Love in a Cold Climate, pt.1, ch.2.
The history of Western science confirms the aphorism that the great menace to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.
daniel j. boorstin— Cleopatra's Nose (1995). This "aphorism" was expressed in different forms by Josh Billings and Socrates.
An aphorism is a generalization of sorts, and our present-day writers seem more at home with the particular.
Anatole Broyard— ‘Wisdom of Aphorisms’, New York Times, 30th April 1983
We have oftener than once endeavoured to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vulgarly imputed to Shaftesbury, which however we can find nowhere in his works, that "ridicule is the test of truth ."
thomas carlyle— Voltaire, Foreign Review, (1829); compare: "How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule?", Shaftesbury, Characteristics. A Letter concerning Enthusiasm, sect. 2.; "Truth, 't is supposed, may bear all lights; and one of those principal lights or natural mediums by which things are to be viewed in order to a thorough recognition is ridicule itself", Shaftesbury, Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour, sect. 1.; "'T was the saying of an ancient sage [Gorgias Leontinus, apud Aristotle's "Rhetoric," lib. iii. c. 18], that humour was the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour. For a subject which would not bear raillery was suspicious; and a jest which would not bear a serious examination was certainly false wit", ibid. sect. 5.
Exclusively of the abstract science, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection (1825).
We have oftener than once endeavoured to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vulgarly imputed to Shaftesbury, which however we can find nowhere in his works, that "ridicule is the test of truth."
thomas carlyle— Thomas Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855), Voltaire
‘Aphorizein’, from which we get the word ‘aphorism’, means to retreat to such a distance that a horizon of thought is formed which never again closes on itself.
— Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007), French philosopher and writer. Cool Memories V (2006)
aphorism, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. "The Mad Philosopher," 1697
— Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914?), American writer. The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), English poet. Aids to Reflection, 'Introductory Aphorisms', No. 27 (1825)
In an aphorism, aptness counts for more than truth.
— Mason Cooley (1927–2002), American literary academic and aphorist. City Aphorisms, Fourth Selection (1987)
An aphorism is a name but every name can take on the figure of aphorism.
— Jacques Derrida in: Jacques Derrida, ?Derek Attridge (1992), Acts of Literature, p. 416
An aphorism is the last link in a long chain of thought.
— Marie Freifrau von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916), Austrian writer. Aphorisms (1890), p. 19
There is a difference between being witty – quick with the repartee and the insight – and having an aptitude for aphorism.
— James Fenton. The Guardian (UK) newspaper, 17th February 2007
An aphorism is a generalization, therefore not modern.
john fowles— John Fowles (Feb. 29, 1960), in: John Fowles, The Journals, Vol. 1, p. 433 (2010)
Without losing ourselves in a wilderness of definitions, we can all agree that the most obvious characteristic of an aphorism, apart from its brevity, is that it is a generalization. It offers a comment on some recurrent aspect of life, couched in terms which are meant to be permanently and universally applicable.
— John Gross, English journalist, writer and literary critic. ‘Introduction’, The Oxford Book of Aphorisms (1983)
An aphorism never coincides with the truth: it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.
— Karl Kraus (1874–1936), Austrian writer. Half–Truths and One–and–a–Half Truths, Translated by Harry Zohn (1990)
One cannot dictate an aphorism to a typist. It would take too long.
— Karl Kraus. Half–truths and One–and–a–Half Truths, translated by Harry Zohn (1990)
An aphorism is a many-faceted observation: speculative and not necessarily witty.
— David Mikics (2008), A New Handbook of Literary Terms, p. 21
An aphorism, honestly stamped and molded, has not yet been “deciphered” once we have read it over; rather, its exegesis for which an art of exegesis is needed has only just begun.
— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher. On the Genealogy of Morals, 'Preface', Section 8 (1887)
The aphorism is only useful in small measured doses but even then it’s only a kind of intellectual placebo, prompting ideas the reader should have prompted in themselves anyway.
— Don Paterson, The Blind Eye: A Book of Late Advice (2007)
An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.
— Freidrich von Schlegel (1772–1829), German philosopher. Aphorism 206 in, Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)
An aphorism has been defined as a proverb coined in a private mint, and the definition is a happy one; for the aphorism, like the proverb, is the result of observation, and however private and superior the mint, the coins it strikes must, to find acceptance, be made of current metal.
— Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946), American born essayist and critic. ‘Introduction’, A Treasury of English Aphorisms (1943), p. 7
An aphorism is not an argument; it is too well-bred for that.
— Susan Sontag (1933–2004), Journal entry, April 26, 1980
In an important sense, then, an aphorism is the “pure fool” of discourse, being only simply appearance. Yet the attempt to find it out will stir up the fermentation on which it rests, much in the way that Oedipus brings himself to light. The aphorism presents itself as an answer for which we know not the question.
— Tracy B. Strong (American political science academic, author), in Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration, p. 132, University of Illinois Press (2001)
The aphorism is a mode of symbolic representation that belongs to an era dominated by highly individualized and introverted experience, atomistic thought and feelings, an absence of commonly accepted religious beliefs and moral standards and the general disintegration of traditional culture.
— Dalibor Vesely (2004), Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation, p. 346
The difference between an aphorism and a fragment is in their means of articulation. While aphorisms are primarily literary or philosophical, fragments can be pictorial, musical, or architectural as well. But because the highest degree of articulation can be achieved in an aphorism, it remains for all fragments the measure of possible expression and of their latent meaning.
— Dalibor Vesely (2004), Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation, p. 346
aphorism or maxim, let us remember that this wisdom of life is the true salt of literature; that those books, at least in prose, are most nourishing which are most richly stored with it; and that is one of the great objects, apart from the mere acquisition of knowledge, which men ought to seek in the reading of books.
— John Morley (1838-1923), 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, British statesman and writer. Aphorisms (1887) p. 11
