Aphorisms Quotes
More Aphorisms Quotes
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).
Aphorisms, representing a knowledge broken, do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods, carrying the show of a total, do secure men, as if they were at furthest.
Francis Bacon— Francis Bacon, The Proficience and Advancement of Learning (1605), Second Book XI–XX, p. 5
Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader’s teeth.
— Anatole Broyard. ‘Books of the Times’, New York Times, June 6th 1984
Aphorisms are not true or false, but pointed or flat.
— Mason Cooley. City Aphorisms, Fourth Selection (1987)
Aphorisms have never seduced anybody, but they have fooled some into considering themselves worldly-wise.
— Mason Cooley. City Aphorisms, Twelfth Selection (1993)
Aphorisms are short, pithy sayings; they are individual passages that can be recited and remain intelligible out of context; they can stand on their own without further support.
— Dr. Louis Groarke, Canadian philosopher. Philosophy as Inspiration: Blaise Pascal and the Epistemology of Aphorisms. Essay in, Poetics Today, Fall 2007
Aphorisms are rogue ideas.
— Susan Sontag (1933–2004), Journal entry, April 26, 1980
One said of suicide, “As long as one has brains one should not blow them out.” And another answered, “But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.”
f. h. bradley— Aphorisms, No. 48 (1930)
Most of my writing consists of an attempt to translate Aphorisms into continuous prose.
Northrop Frye— Quoted in Richard Kostelanetz,'The Literature Professors' Literature Professor', in TheMichigan Quarterly Review, Fall1978.
There are Aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.
vladimir nabokov— 1937 The Gift, ch.1.
Our live experiences, fixed in Aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart’s blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.
f. h. bradley— No. 25 (Aphorisms (1930))
If you mean to know yourself, interline such of these Aphorisms as affect you agreeably in reading, and set a mark to such as left a sense of uneasiness with you; and then show your copy to whom you please.
johann kaspar lavater— No. 643 (Aphorisms on Man (c. 1788))
One of the Aphorisms occurred to me now and I wrote it under the picture: "Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept." That was clear to me now.
hermann hesse— p. 162 (Demian (1919))
But, perhaps, the excellence of Aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in few words.
samuel johnson— No. 175 (19 November 1751).
At all times pseudoprofound Aphorisms have been more popular than rigorous arguments.
— Mario Bunge, Evaluating Philosophies (2012), p. xiv.
The great writers of Aphorisms read as if they had all known each other very well.
— Elias Canetti, The Human Province (1942–1972).
But quotations and Aphorisms are generally just verbal Christmas presents; enticingly done up in pretty paper and ribbons, but once you get them open they generally turn out to be just socks.
— Tom Holt Barking (2007).
The hunter for Aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is ever condemned to find much of his own mind.
— Francis Herbert Bradley (1846–1924), British philosopher. Aphorisms (1930)
There is something anachronistic about the very idea of Aphorisms or maxims. Contemporary culture isn’t stately enough, or stable enough, to support them.
— Anatole Broyard (1920–1990), American literary critic. ‘Wisdom of Aphorisms’, New York Times, 30th April 1983
The great writers of Aphorisms read as if they had all known each other very well.
— Elias Canetti (1905–1994), Jewish-Bulgarian writer. The Human Province (1942–1972)
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)
An aphorism is a speculative principle either in science or morals, which is presented in a few words to the understanding:;; it is the substance of a doctrine, and many Aphorisms may contain the abstract of a science
— George Crabb (1846), English Synonymes Explained, in Alphabetical Order, p. 114
I’ve always felt Aphorisms as reminders, gongs–in–words.
— Olivia Dresher (b.1945), American literary editor, publisher and poet. 'Aphorisms by Olivia Dresher', from, All Aphorisms, All the Time, a blog on James Geary's website, 24th February 2009
But, perhaps, the excellence of Aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words.
— Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), English poet and lexicographer. The Rambler, No. 175, 19th November 1751
Someone who can write Aphorisms should not fritter away his time writing essays.
— Karl Kraus. Half–Truths and One–and–a–Half Truths, translated by Harry Zohn (1990)
There are Aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.
— Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), Russian-American novelist and poet. The Gift (1937), Ch. 1, from the English edition, published by G. P. Putnam’s Son (1963)
Whoever writes in blood and Aphorisms wants not to be learned but to be learned by heart.
— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, First Part, 'On Reading and Writing' (1883)
Despite our attempts to imbue them with some flavor, any flavor Aphorisms all turn out so...generic; they all sound as if they were delivered by the same disenfranchised, bad-tempered minor deity.
— Don Paterson, Best Thought, Worst Thought: On Art, Sex, Work, and Death. (2008)
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
